


The Dawning Alliance: Secrets and Hopes

by brightephemera



Series: Knights of the Dawning Alliance [2]
Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ensemble Cast, F/M, M/M, Nation Building, OC - Rylon Niral, post Zakuul
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-09-27 22:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 48,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17170787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightephemera/pseuds/brightephemera
Summary: This standalone sequel to the Eternal Empire story Knights of the Dawning Alliance (all necessary backstory is provided) follows the fortunes of the Dawning Alliance in the year between the fall of Empress Vaylin, sole survivor of her family, and the resolution of the Iokath weapon. Features all class characters except Inquisitor (dead) and Trooper (imprisoned).Outlander Ruth Niral won her way from Emperor’s Wrath to Emperor’s bane. Now she must face peace with the Alliance she had gathered to win a war. Features Imperial Agent Wynston, Jedi Knight Larr Gith, Barsen’thor Tebbith, Champion Hunter Calline, and Vette the Voidwolf (Voidpuppy to her friends).





	1. Reunited

**Author's Note:**

> Secrets and Hopes continues the story of Knights of the Dawning Alliance, a retelling of the Eternal Empire expansions. S&H is structured to provide all necessary backstory as it goes. Right from the beginning it contains extensive spoilers for KotDA.
> 
> (Tumblr followers – many segments of this story have been presented out of order on Tumblr. Secrets and Hopes picks up the very day that Ruth defeats the Emperor on Zakuul.)
> 
> This long opening chapter serves as introduction to the chief figures of the Dawning Alliance. In the hours after victory on Zakuul, the main figures of the Alliance return to Ephel, where their base moved after Odessen was pummeled to glass. Here, introductions on what they did when they started for home…

Reunion.

From the chaos of Zakuul, now calming into the care of the domestic resistance, the leaders of the Dawning Alliance took the late Darth Scythia’s transport, the one whose cargo bay was occupied by a pacing, growling Vaylin. Around them the Alliance reinforcements lifted out of the atmosphere and into hyperspace en route to Ephel.

Then they gathered in the cavernous holo room.

There was a right-angle turn of a couch, and Ruth the Outlander sat along one side. Theron hugged Lana, hard, their first contact in weeks, then went to sit next to Ruth…also their first contact in weeks. When he put an arm around her waist, jostling the borrowed red jacket she was wearing askew, she leaned into him. Lana and Wynston made an island of Imperial origin along the other side. Wynston pushed a hand over to Ruth, and she pressed it lightly, and shared a heart-mending smile with him, and then let him get back to the woman he ought to be worried about.

Master Larr Gith settled at the end of another couch and patted the cushion next to her. “Over here, Teb.” Barsen’thor Tebbith complied, and Koth sat at his other side.

And leaned toward the Jedi. Ruth raised her eyebrows at Lana, who seemed to have noticed the same thing, and they both looked at Theron, who had been at home during their respective wanderings and now just grinned.

Vette pulled up a chair of her own. The Alliance sat in this ragged rectangle, and everyone was all right.

“We made it,” said Wynston. “All of us. Zakuul is ours to reform as an ally, and the Alliance free to develop. Due entirely to everyone here.”

Larr Gith tossed her head impatiently. “Are we going to talk about Lana?”

“You voted for her,” said Ruth.

“Well, sure, but then she signed up with evil incarnate.”

“If it were just me,” said Ruth.

The room sharpened, listening.

Lana sat in unflinching dignity, and Ruth didn’t hesitate. “I would welcome her back home. She’s been gone too long. But after our last showdown I’m trying to cut back on the unilateral dictation.” Theron ran an arm over her shoulders and pulled her in to kiss her hair.

“Do you want in?” said Wynston.

“Wynston,” said Lana. “I’ve worked for nothing else. Though…the irony of a vote is not lost on me.”

Wynston didn’t touch her, but he smiled crookedly. “I say aye.”

“Aye,” said Tebbith. “If it’s home for one of us, it’s home for all of us.”

“Ruth,” said Larr Gith, “you need all the honest opposition you can get. That’s a big enough job for two women, I’m not ashamed to say. Aye.”

Vette looked at Ruth. “Do I get a vote? Am I on that level? Because really, from where I sit, Lana teamed up with our second worst enemy. Scythia? You know, the one who bombed Odessen into the stone age? Did something happen to change that while I was away trying to get Ruth home?”

Ruth raised her eyebrows. The most recent moments of the Sith alliance, before everyone had converged on Zakuul, were not yet widely known. “Lana, do you want to summarize this, or should I?”

“I aided Scythia,” said Lana without hesitation. “I volunteered to become her enforcer. I helped her implement the stolen plans for that Force cage you see in the other room. I took the measures Scythia planned to lure Vaylin into a trap with the intent of killing her. It’s the only reason I cooperated with her: I believed she had the means and the will to destroy Vaylin. Regardless of that assessment…when Scythia decided the best bait would be Ruth herself…I helped her draw Ruth away on Nathema. Then, when we reached this ship and its cage, I released Ruth, imprisoned Vaylin, and killed Scythia.”

Vette scoffed. “So…you betrayed her but you betrayed Scythia too.” She looked toward Ruth. “She wants to come back? The Wrath should’ve stabbed her in the chest when she went in for a hug.”

“The Wrath left the house, Vette.”

History and the considerably more pointed critics of the room didn’t dispute the point.

Vette nodded. “Y’know? I believe you.”

Ruth suspected she was blushing. Vette didn’t praise her often. “Scythia would have kept me as a pet in that cage for as long as I might be useful. Lana spared me that fate.”

“Joy. For a Sith that’s practically generous.”

Silence.

 “You come up with the craziest plans that still work. And you took the fight directly to the enemy. I want to see where that thinking goes,” said Koth. “Aye.”

“Theron?” said Lana.

“My vote doesn’t matter,” said Theron. “The ayes have it.”

“That’s not an answer,” said Lana.

Theron squeezed Ruth and frowned thoughtfully. “Look, if we hadn’t just gone through…what we just went through, I would tell you to go pound sand. You don’t get to rip us apart because we had a setback. But to be honest I of all people should understand the lengths you go to when it’s necessary, and it did work out. Like your crazy schemes do. Fine. I’m in.”

“Ruth?” said Wynston. “It looks like the ayes have it.”

“Yes. Vette, I promise, we can talk about this if you want to.”

The Twi’lek cast a venomous look at Lana. “I don’t. You’re okay. That’s why I came here and that’s what I expect to see the next time I swing through town. Other Sith lords present please take note.”

“Count on it,” said Ruth.

“Glad we had this chat,” chirped Vette, and pulled out a datapad to pay attention to.

“We’re going to have our hands full with a shiny new Empire,” said Larr Gith, twirling a length of golden hair between pink fingertips. “Will you be delegating that?”

As if Ruth knew how to run a country. Any more than she already had. “An Eternal Empire native would be best suited.”

“I met a guy. We could ask him.”

Ruth waited for the part that made sense. “A…guy.”

“Sure. You saw him on the holo. Short, cute, great kisser. He’s also a patriot in letters thirty miles high. Not the scary warlord kind, either. He just wants his people to be okay. And if you don’t like him, he’s got a dozen best friends who helped me set the stage on Zakuul.”

“We could also run an election,” said Theron. “Just a thought.”

“Smart,” said Ruth. “It would be a great gesture to say we’re not overlords.”

“We’ll see to it,” said Wynston. “I’ve interfered in enough of them, I think I have a sense for how they should go.”

“Master Larr,” said Tebbith. He was staring at Ruth.

“Hm?” said Larr Gith.

“Look at her.”

“Which one? They’re both drab.”

“Look at the Outlander.”

“Tebbith?” said Ruth. “Something wrong?”

He shook his head, moving tattoos from side to side. “I see you in the Force. By all that’s merciful. What I saw before versus what I see now…you survived getting _that_ ripped out of you? And have enough mind left to keep walking around after?”

“Er. Arguably.” Well, she did feel a lot lighter.

“I underestimated your fortitude.” He bowed, sitting. “Truly, welcome home.”

“Well…thank you.”

They talked about Zakuul, mostly, and about practical considerations. Ruth’s hours alone over the past weeks, and Lana’s in the shadow of Scythia, were not touched in detail. Confessions could wait, and healing was finally in sight.

“All right, it’s about 2 AM at the temple,” said Larr Gith. “And we’re five hours out. I for one am getting some beauty rest. Assuming this place has beds?”

“I trust you to manage,” said Lana.

“Lana,” said Ruth, “if you’re not tired…could you watch Vaylin’s cage? You helped build it.”

Lana looked coolly prepared. Just as she had been, just as she was meant to be. “If I can be useful.”

Wynston cast her a sharp look and then pretended he hadn’t. “Get some rest, Ruth,” he said calmly.

“Very well.” Ruth watched as her long-sundered crew scattered to the hold and what might be crew quarters. They were all here. That was more than she’d dared to hope. And, after everything, they were almost home.

 

===

 

Ruth did not get some rest.

She headed to the bridge, where Scythia’s astromech droid was humming by the navicomputer. She checked the restraining bolt. Then, on instinct, she froze.

“Ruth?” Theron was just behind her shoulder. She turned to him, and the weeks on the hyperlanes alone stopped mattering.

She pointed. “I need to sit,” she said hoarsely, and went to slump against the wall. After that fight over Zakuul’s depths she needed something enclosed. This dim angle of this dim room would do.

Theron followed and sat beside her, slipping an arm over her shoulders. She shook, a little bit.

“Can I be critical for just a second?” he said softly.

She said the only thing to say. “Okay.”

“Don’t _ever_ go off on your own again,” he said.

It was a tired argument. The Emperor had demonstrated the ability to force her to act, had used it to kill Arcann. She had left to keep from killing anyone more dear. But that could wait. “I promise,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

She twisted to look at him, secure in the curve of his arm. “I think I am now.”

“Good. I…don’t know what I would’ve done if he’d gotten you.”

“I love you. I know it didn’t look like it, but I do.”

“Okay.” He squeezed her. “Is that enough for now?”

“You and me and…us. We’re going home.”

“At top speed.”

“Okay.”

He rested his head atop hers and they sat in silence. The Emperor was gone from her mind. Not controlling, not forcing her away from everyone she loved. Everything else could wait.

She listened to his heartbeat, drifted with his breath. Half a minute later he snored, quietly. Ruth shifted and he slid naturally to the floor, and she guided his head to her lap. He lay there secure in his second best jacket. She ran her fingertips down his neglected jawline, and smiled, and took his everyday jacket off her own shoulders to tuck over him. She felt cold, but he looked like everything she had struggled this hard to save.

 

===

 

Master Larr Gith stuck her head in from the direction of the holo room. Her golden braids were looped over her shoulders and tied back up at her crown. “Ruth. We need to talk.”

Ruth looked at Theron, who was sleeping open-mouthed in her lap. She rolled her eyes. “Can this wait?”

“No.”

“Fine.” She didn’t pout. She didn’t.

Larr Gith cleared her throat dramatically. “So the Emperor just vacated your head. You’re going to feel like half your brain got scooped out and what’s left is doing its level best to expand to fill the space using only sharp objects and self-pity. It hurts even when you had a brain to start with. Who knows, you might not have an issue. That’s the big thing. Then, I couldn’t get warm. For weeks.”

Ruth frowned. “I assumed…well, I don’t know what I assumed. I’ll steal his jacket back if I need it.”

“Aren’t you precious. Do you dream about your arms moving? Or you walking, or fighting, and you can’t stop it? Sleep with somebody. It helps when you wake up convinced he’s still in there.”

“It doesn’t still bother you,” Ruth said uncertainly.

Larr Gith fluttered one hand. “I’m the hero. Ruth, if you think anything about this is going to drive you crazy you’re probably right, but it doesn’t have to. Remember, I did hit the Emperor’s power face first a long time ago, and see how I turned out.”

“Is that good?” Ruth said dryly.

“Hey. I’m helping.”

“Right. I’m sorry.”

“Wow, and you’re civil, too? This non-Emperor thing is amazing.” Larr Gith smiled suddenly. “Keep your man close. It gets warmer eventually, but–” she hugged herself and shimmied – “you don’t have to tell him that.”

“That’s good to know. Thank you.”

“I’ll just leave said man and the floor to get better acquainted. Happy Independence Day, Ruth. We earned it.”

“Happy…?” Ruth said, but the Jedi was already gone.

 

===

 

Indo Zal had seen the splendid throne room of the Eternal Empire a thousand times in holovids, some of which he had orchestrated. The great bridge. The round dais. The Eternal Throne, emblem of a glory that would span eternity.

Strange, how very many busy days it would take to get there.

He led a trio of people who were better shots than him: civilians, freedom fighters, prisoners, slaves. Now, the backbone of the reconstruction. They stayed behind him. He had developed all the relationships he could in the past chaotic days, and he dearly hoped that the Outlander would choose to build on his foundation rather than trying to carve out her own. After the single evening of their acquaintance at Vaylin’s party he knew only three things about her: she had agreed to free Vaylin’s slaves like it was an obvious decision, she had charged Vaylin like she expected to win, and she had cut Arcann down like a weed on galactic holovision.

Three very endearing qualities, those.

The room was vast, lit beautifully up and down. Several Skytrooper droids lay still at the foot of the Eternal Throne. A tall woman in battered electrum armor was easing pieces off and tossing them in the air above the massive drop and shooting them mid-fall.

Indo Zal kept his blaster up. He hadn’t ever had to fire it, as such, but he imagined he was ready. “You!” His voice echoed in the blasted throne room. “What happened here? Where is Larr Gith?”

The woman turned to him, staring down her blaster. She seemed to reach a quick decision and holstered the blaster to free up hands to take her helmet off. She was Chiss, dark blue, with unsettling red eyes. “She left,” she said, sounding unworried. “Zal, right? You got any droid problems?”

Indo Zal gestured to calm his companions without looking away. “Strangely, every Skytrooper I’ve seen on my way here has saluted and gone on its way.”

The Chiss grinned. “It worked. They’re yours. My compliments.”

“Then I owe you my thanks, Miss…?”

She shrugged. “I’m nobody.”

“Dear lady, you’re freeing my homeworld. Forgive me if I happen to assign value to that.”

“Calline. You going to democratize the place?”

“That’s the idea.”

The Chiss stared at him. “Huh,” she said. “Call me if you need someone retrieved.” Then she touched the blasters at her hips and stalked past him toward the planet’s undimmed sunlight.

 

===

 

“First problem,” said Ruth.

The transition from hyperspace had waked her from her dreamless sleep, and her soothing regard of the man in her lap had eventually roused him, too. The others had already gathered in the holo room.

“Vaylin is in that cage,” said Ruth. “We need her in the jail cell we prepared. We can’t fit that cargo bay down the stairs.”

“So you’re going to let her out,” Koth said flatly.

“Don’t be ridiculo–” said Theron. “Wait. Ruth. Really?”

“I promise that’s the most inadvisable thing I’m going to request all day. But we need to get her down there.”

“Why,” said Larr Gith.

“Because I need to reach her,” said Ruth. “The war is over. I won’t slaughter her into the deal.”

“Why,” said Vette.

“I owe this to her mother. Whom, you might recall, I killed in my attempt to get to Arcann.”

“You’re crazy,” said Larr Gith. “But fine. I always did want to show the Jedi Council how rehab is done.” She flexed her hands. “I’ll make sure she’s under control.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘fine,’” said Koth. “Have you lost your mind? Do you not remember what she’s done?”

“I remember,” said Ruth. “The man in my head had suggestions for improvement on it. That alone would make any of her actions repugnant. I remember, but Koth, I have to try.”

The man scowled and looked away.

“I am at your disposal, of course,” said Tebbith. “Mercy is never wasted.”

“We fought her once,” said Lana. “We’ll manage.”

“I have tranquilizers,” said Wynston. “Though I would be surprised if they worked.”

“It might slow her down,” said Ruth. “All right. She does energy attacks as much as kinetic ones. Tebbith, I believe that’s your area of expertise.”

“You and I get all identified flying objects,” said Larr Gith to Ruth. “Bet you I can intercept more.”

Ruth glared. “Yes, please, conduct our pissing contest while we’re moving the most dangerous woman in the galaxy.”

“Really?” said Lana.

“What does that mean?” said Ruth.

Lana gestured around. She had already settled into the scene like she’d never been gone, and her voice was confident into the deal. “Look at the three of us. Any one could hold her own. Try to tell me something is more dangerous than our combination.”

“Well, we’re about to see.”

“You could be an honorary girl for the most-dangerous club,” Larr Gith said graciously to Tebbith.

“I believe,” he said, “I will keep my gender. The offer is appreciated, though.”

Theron lowered the forcefield of the dim bulbous cargo bay. Vaylin didn’t move when Wynston got close enough to shoot a dart at her bare arm then back away. Their warning was nothing but a tremor before the entire frame of the enclosure ripped free and swung at them.

Ruth and Larr Gith stopped it in place. Vaylin surged to her feet and brushed off her arm. “You idiots,” she said, and raised her hand.

Tebbith brought up one hand, too. Something twisted the air around Vaylin’s head and she gave a choked cry. Lana rushed to grab her arm and start dragging her toward the ship’s ramp. Tebbith joined her on Vaylin’s other side.

She hissed. Tebbith flew up bodily and slammed into the wall with an audible crack. He rebounded and raised a bubble of Force power around him, but everyone heard the low moan when he did it.

It was in fact very quiet compared with the explosion of lightning Vaylin summoned next even while Lana hauled her along. Tebbith summoned another twist near the woman’s head, and Larr Gith blocked the better part of the maelstrom with her lightsaber, and seconds later Vaylin flagged and reeled.

They had landed as close to the complex’s entrance as they could, but the path to the prison was not short. The Force-blinds got clear. Theron, Wynston, and Vette rushed to clear the hallways. Koth went, who knew where. The party limped onward.

Vaylin sagged groggily but she kept testing them. Tebbith’s mind slams were getting less and less effective. Meanwhile, Vaylin’s strikes were always an instant ahead of Ruth’s reactions. The woman had been taught to fight Force users, Knights.

No, not just that. She had been taught to fight her mother.

Ruth faltered. Vaylin screeched and flared lightning in her direction, washing around her lightsaber in the second of lost focus. Ruth was aware of leaving the ground. She thought someone cushioned her impact with the rough stone in the split second between shifting clashes.

Her neck and hand kept hurting when the Force lightning licked away.

It went on: Vaylin would stumble, Vaylin would raise slabs out of the ground itself that Ruth would have to physically suppress. She would snarl, she would pulse lightning three ways at once, leaving Ruth and Larr Gith to scramble. Tebbith and Lana kept dragging her, even when she pushed energy up the Zabrak’s wrist and Lana’s artificial hand.

But they reached the dark stairs, illuminated now on and off with Vaylin’s flares. Down, down, a mad ball of lashing and intercepting, and past a guard station where the party had to shield the staff until Vaylin was clear, past Fade, past Saresh…to the deepest of all. A room set up like a diorama, cleanly furnished, brightly lit, spiritless.

“Teb,” said Larr Gith.

“Ready,” said Tebbith. “Lana, the switch?”

“One more time,” said Lana.

Together they shoved Vaylin the last few steps in. Lana slammed the switch and Tebbith did something Ruth didn’t quite follow that looped the Force around the cage and left a void in the middle. A void where Vaylin twisted like a wildcat and launched herself at the front forcefield. “No,” she said. “No! Insects! I…will…not…be… _bound_.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruth.

Larr Gith eyeballed her. “You are?”

“She’s been trapped all her life.”

“Don’t you _dare_ pity me, _worm_.” Vaylin was slurring her words. From fatigue, tranquilizers, or Tebbith’s repeated dealings, Ruth couldn’t tell. “Your death will be the slowest of all.”

“Excellent object of sympathy,” said Larr Gith. “And yet I’m the one you choose to dislike. Is there no justice?”

Ruth ignored her. “Vaylin…we’ll speak again. Someday you may see this as a beginning.”

“Crazy,” said Larr Gith. “So you know.”

“I have hope for your sake,” said Tebbith.

“It’ll be interesting to see what she does with this,” Lana said crisply.

Ruth sighed. “Thank you all,” she said. “This won’t be wasted.”

Vaylin’s revival was failing, and she was slowly tilting toward the cushion of the plush but bolted-down couch.

Ruth tried to think of what else to say. Nothing came to mind. Vaylin was safe, maybe for the first time, at the cost of her freedom. Ruth wanted words. Words other than Sorry I killed your entire family, I wish I hadn’t had to. But nothing came to mind.

Lana set a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go fix Tebbith’s ribs, shall we?” she said. “And whatever of you smells like burning.” Ruth reluctantly turned away, holding her scorched hand still. The party filed out.

 

===

 

Wynston and Theron appeared as soon as the Force users got upstairs. The Jedi split up; Ruth and Lana stayed in step with Wynston and Theron while they caught up on even more Alliance events since the scattering. Their path could only go one way: to ops, the capacious console-lined room with windows overlooking the gorge.

“Rylon.” Ruth rushed headlong past some irrelevant number of people and furniture to kneel in front of her already-taller boy.

When she went in for a hug, he set a soft hand on her shoulder and frowned at her. “Where is my mother?”

She resisted the initial sting. “I’m here, Rylon. Search your feelings. This is what I am when the Emperor’s influence is gone.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Do you understand?”

“There was pain before,” he mumbled. “A lot of pain.”

“It’s gone now. I’m free.”

“Are you still strong?”

“I have you. And Theron. And this home. I have plenty of passions.”

Thoughtfully he consented to a hug. “Can we meditate?”

“Yes. I need a moment here, then I’m yours.” He nodded and turned toward the door, then twisted questioningly toward her.

Wynston jerked his head toward him. “He was here most of the time I was. I didn’t have the heart to kick him out.”

“Here was right,” she said. She looked around. Major Aric Jorgan was standing stiffly by the big board, watching her. “Major,” she said. “Good watch?”

“Ma’am.” Jorgan saluted. “Seems your side went all right. Your son’s probably learned enough to run this place by himself.”

“Thank you. I hope he’s behaved.”

“Not a problem. He helped me keep the map up to date. Sharp kid.” He cleared his throat. “Everything’s under control, except for a spike in traffic from Zakuul.”

“As expected. Thank you, Major.” Ruth turned her attention to her son.

The soldier didn’t move. “Ma’am, there’s one more thing.”

She looked back up at him. He was standing stiffly, yellow eyes unreadable. “Yes?”

“You’re back, so I assume…well. But there are a lot of rumors going around these last few weeks. It’s not my business, but a statement for the troops might help clear the air.”

Right. She had dealt with the Emperor, now…everyone else in the galaxy. Everyone who had waited faithfully for her to finish this. “I’ll come up with something. Thank you.” She bowed, hand over heart.

“Ma’am.” He saluted again. “It’s…good, to see you back.” And with that he marched past her.

“If we’re settled,” said Wynston, “I can take over here. You deserve a rest.”

“I need to talk to Theron and Rylon,” she said. “but I’ll be back. I want the work.”

“And we’ll have some.” Lana opened her eyes. “I've already sensed forces gathering to oppose the Alliance.”

Sad, but inevitable. “I'm glad you see that. Please tell me when leads appear. My Force intuition is...a little bruised at the moment.”

Lana smiled. “It’s saved our friends in the past. Go on, we’ll settle things until Larr Gith takes up the PR blitz.”

“Then I’ll see you later.” Ruth looked back at Rylon, who was fidgeting, and Theron, who had been silently thoughtful. “Let’s go.”

 

===

 

Lana and Wynston studied the manic scroll of situation reports below the big board in ops.

“The Fleet,” said Lana. “I can hardly believe you really took it.”

“With help,” Wynston said crisply. “It needs to close ranks, now. We can’t hold the border worlds at our current power.”

“If we must let them go, play it as a diplomatic concession to the Empire.”

“And Republic.”

Lana nodded stiffly. “Ah.”

That settled, it seemed time to…change the subject. “Look at those regions. These people are tired of war. Let them follow their inclinations.”

She sensed it, too. “You must have innumerable allies eager to help you with that,” she said coolly.

“No one since you.”

She gave him a brief startled look.

He cleared his throat. “I’m trying not to let them fall back on raw material support.” Alcohol in particular.

“They’re self-sustaining, Wynston. I always knew that, and I respect it.”

“All right.” Her confidence helped salve his. “Your thoughts on the exodus from Zakuul?”

“There are a lot of displaced people after all that’s happened,” she said slowly.

“There’s room for them.” He weighed his chances. “Individually if they prefer.”

“And if they wish to double up?”

“We can accommodate that,” he rushed. “Easily. – Whatever your reasons, please. Don’t do it for efficiency’s sake.”

“No. I imagine there may be any number of more substantial reasons.” Her smile started and ended in a heartbeat. “We’re going to need a strong presence on Zakuul. Do you know whether the Outlander will be taking that on?”

“Most likely. She’ll have Larr Gith and Tebbith. And Koth, I expect.”

“The whole party. Will you be with her?”

“No.”

She looked at him. He looked at her.

The console beeped. A few seconds later Lana looked at it. “Message from Darth Acina,” she said. “That’ll wait for Ruth.”

“Agreed. Would you care to join me at the side screen? As the questions roll in here we’ll want a response, and I think our leader could do with a ghostwriter.”

“Or two.” Lana looked up at the big map and breathed hard through her nose. “I missed this.”

“Do you want the regrets list I’ve been working on?”

Her fire-touched eyes sparkled. “In time. We have a press release to formulate. And, as usual, we need it now.”

 

===

 

“Is it done?” said Koth.

“Yes,” said Tebbith.

“Fine. I just…” the Human cut a gesture…“let’s not talk about it. I have been looking forward to this too long to slow down now.”

“Oh,” said Tebbith.

The restaurant, a new addition to the burgeoning second settlement on Ephel, was sprawling and vaguely lit by the windows along one wall. Yellow globe-shaped candleglows served for illumination at each interior table. Koth sat opposite Tebbith and just looked at him, settling this new impression into the glimmering image the Zabrak had made in his head.

“You look great,” said Koth. “Hard to believe we were fighting for our lives eighteen hours ago.”

“Our lives have that dichotomy now,” Tebbith said, his resonant voice low and pleasant. “It makes what time we can take here that much more valuable.”

“I really didn’t think we would all make it this far.”

Tebbith nodded thoughtfully. “So long as I have any influence, Koth, we will survive. I have a little experience in keeping…varied…gatherings peaceful.”

“You’ve kept us from exploding more than once. Not to mention us facing the people actually labeled ‘enemy.’ Look at who we were fighting. Arcann. Vaylin. Scythia. By all rights they should’ve ripped us into pieces.”

“We faced them one at a time. And we faced them with backup. This team has many virtues, and classical battlefield tactics ranks highly among them.”

“I could criticize a lot of things about our leadership, but you’ve got that right.”

“That’s not to say there wasn’t danger. I always went in knowing that there is no death, there is the Force. But I find that even so I prefer our victories as we’ve earned them so far.”

“You know…I’ve heard Jedi say that. But there is death.” And a man who faced reality with such dignified courage should know it. “There have been times when I was on the run that I was dealing it nearly every day. Nothing is certain, everything has to be fought for, every thing, every feeling has to be taken with both hands or else it’s gone – because even if the galaxy stood still for you you would have to keep running. That was my Code. I realize it doesn’t distill quite so neatly into something deep.”

“But it explains who you have become.”

So solemn, and so final. “Are you disappointed?”

“I’m enthralled.” For just a few seconds Tebbith could have cut transparisteel with his gaze. Then he cleared his throat and dabbed at his mouth and reddened cheeks with his napkin. “The sleen is very good, would you like a taste?”

Koth laughed quietly and leaned back. “You know, I will never get tired of you talking like that, but…less lucky men hint. They leave a little to the imagination.”

“I can leave and check my books,” Tebbith said seriously. “I can come back in a year when I’ve learned more about making you feel desirable the way you want. The way anyone who isn’t a Jedi would know how to. I think I understand what to look for now. I expect the conversation would be much improved.”

“A year?” Koth wasn’t sure he would make it another half hour without pouncing, never mind a year. "You really would, wouldn’t you.”

“I’m not too proud to admit that I still need to work on some subjects.”

“Tebbith.”

“Koth?”

“I don’t want the sleen. I’ve had about enough to eat.”

Tebbith looked crushed. “Have I offended?”

“No. I’d just like to go someplace once you’re done eating.”

Tebbith stood. His smile was still shy. “I’m ready when you are.”

“I’m ready.” Koth dropped a credstick on the table. “Let’s go.”

 

===

 

On the landing for the shuttle they stood together, waiting for the ride back to their apartments.

Two years ago Tebbith had been ignorant; eighteen months ago, intrigued; a year ago, trusting; six months ago, hungry; here and now, all of that and more. He would have to put that in his next letter.

“Since when did it take so long?” he murmured.

“Since you started wanting it,” Koth said, grinning. “That’s just a law of nature. Sorry, Jedi, this is how the attachment half lives.”

“When we left, I, I don’t want you to think I’m only in this for what we’re–”

“I know.”

“I’m sure you’ve done this a hundred times already.”

“Standing here, with you? Going rapidly crazy? My first time.”

“And, if you want to back off at any time rather than babysitting–”

“Tebbith.”

“Yes?”

“Some time ago. I don’t remember exactly when. I was with you, on a ship, going to a gathering that we were pretty sure would get violent. You looked miserable. And in retrospect I think you were shaken. This wasn’t the kind of thing you did voluntarily. But instead of complaining you explained the history of the world we were going to. Its folk tales, one of its songs, even. You have a beautiful voice, by the way. You took an assignment that was flat-out scary and turned it into something positive and I’m not sure you even realized that that’s what you were doing for us.” With the aching clarity of every sense Tebbith saw and felt and hummed Koth’s hand coming in to take his. “You’ve got nothing to be nervous about.”

“Oh.” Tebbith squeezed.

“I like your hair, by the way. Very striking.”

When Tebbith turned his head he could feel the elaborate braid that the small patch of longish brown hair at the back of his head had been wound into. “Er, yes. That, um.”

“Done by a friend?”

“Yes,” he said, blushing.

“Does she get the gossip tomorrow?”

“No!” Though he clearly already knew who they were talking about. Larr Gith was unsubtle by nature and preference. But she had done a nice job with his hair.

“Hmm.” Koth grinned. “Not a bad arrangement.”

The platform was crowded. Tebbith jumped out of the way when a wizened woman in cartoonishly grimy Huttese fashion crept in. She was carrying a basket nearly her own size stuffed with brilliant scarlet flowers.

She looked up at Tebbith and Koth with sly eyes. “Oh, one for you,” she said. “It rained last night, and today the lowlands are aflame.” She plucked a long-stemmed flower out and held it between them. “Hm-hm, he needs it more,” and she shoved it at Koth.

“Thank you,” Tebbith said bemusedly. The woman vanished into the crowd.

Koth was holding the red flower, a loose association of broad flat petals the color of distilled passion, and frowning at it. “You know, there’s this flower on Zakuul that traditionally means…” He spun the flower between his fingers and grinned. “Never mind, we’ll get to that.”

They didn’t see her on the shuttle. But the shuttle did arrive, and take on passengers, and lumber languidly to the transfer point behind the temple.

They stayed hand in hand now, and walked, urgently, toward Koth’s quarters. Tebbith was running possible ways he could make a total fool of himself in his head, which was why he was surprised when Koth nudged him through the door, hauled the door shut behind both of them, and pushed him against the wall. Koth threw a forearm across Tebbith’s chest and put his weight behind the pinning motion and kissed him.

Tebbith had not yet managed to reconstitute intelligent thought when Koth pulled away. Tebbith took two or three steps toward the other door before remembering that this was Koth’s place, not his. After that he followed Koth. They stumbled together into a small bedroom that came alight with a dozen or more small dimmed lamps placed around a big bed.

Koth set the flower with care on a shelf. Then, one wide-eyed look, and Koth pushed. Tebbith fell back. Then Koth was on and over and fierce and blindingly perfect and undoing the belt of Tebbith’s robe and Tebbith kissed him and then Koth threw open every upper layer, leaving Tebbith’s chest exposed to the humming air. Koth sat over his hips and leaned back, just looking.

Tebbith had scoured the farthest reaches of his studies in an effort to find permission to do this; but the fact was, Koth Vortena had no precedent, and Tebbith would have to act according to his own discretion. There was a time before this world when that would have frightened him.

Quietly, deliberately, Tebbith slid his robes off his shoulders and arms. Quietly, deliberately, Koth pulled his own shirt off. He folded it with military precision and set it aside. When he stooped again it was to slide his lips over Tebbith’s, and catch, and gently soothe him through the first shocking contact of body to body.

Tempo and tone changed, but the progression of movements made one theme, and Tebbith followed the song with barely a pause for breath. There would be time for all that. They had everything.

 


	2. Summons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Koth and Tebbith find another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having set the stage, I'm now going for one scene at a time. Emotional variation may occur between them, but at least they'll be spread out.

The kisses were light and a little musky. “Hrm,” Tebbith questioned, and kissed back, an instinctive and pleasant sensation. “Blr. I...go”...kiss, and all was well...“what”...since when did he kiss people?

Last night slammed back.

Tebbith surged to sitting and covered himself with the sheet. That jerked the sheet off of the dark-haired Human who had kissed him awake. Panicking, Tebbith restored a corner of his scant covering.

Koth leaned back, looked up at him, and smiled, not unkindly. “You okay?”

“I apologize.”

“For what?”

Tebbith mentally cast about. “I'm sure I did something wrong in the last twelve hours.”

Koth shook his head. “Hm. Not that I saw, and I was paying very close attention the whole time.”

That was sex. Not just the sexual organs, but the breathless repurposing of every inch of skin, every arc of motion. That was the fire hidden inside actions Tebbith had seen in cold holos on his own research time. What had happened last night was surely a mistake, though who that mistake was hurting he couldn't be certain. How many times had he wished he didn't want this, and found that wishing doesn't make it so?

And yet here he was, and the night hadn't been alone. He didn’t feel like a different person, but he knew something now that he hadn’t known before.

He reached to his own scalp and checked his horns, two four six eight ten, a calming ritual.

Koth stirred, shifting arms whose strength and compass were now known. “Talk to me, Tebbith. I always think quiet means you're coming up with a crushing counterargument.”

“No! No, Koth.” He’d said that name in such voices last night. “This is just new. I...hope I wasn't...”

“Disappointing? Not even for a second.”

“I see. I...um. When I'm nervous I turn to my books.”

Koth didn’t laugh or change the subject. “What do your books say?”

“Emotion, but peace. It's a very old version of the Jedi code.” He shut his eyes, remembering. “I thought it wasn't applicable to the modern day. How can you have both at the same time?” He opened. Koth was still looking at him, steady, quietly blazing, defying the dilemma. Tebbith hovered fingertips up over Koth's stomach seen now soft in relaxation, up his sternum between matched muscles, up his rough jaw and over his clean-carved lips, every inch a recollection from what he dearly hoped would be only the first chapter...

Koth was watching him, smiling. “You can touch me, you know.”

Tebbith’s fingertips came to rest, as light and as easily startled as a butterfly, on Koth's defined cheekbone. If attachment was wrong…well, then he had screwed that up a long time ago. Koth's skin was feverish and real and if Tebbith trusted Koth's judgment, which he did, then it was a good morning for a kiss.

The second he started leaning down Koth pushed up on his elbows and caught his lip between his own. Tebbith fervently prayed that instinctive meant good, and kissed him back, a series as gentle as the one that had first brought him awake.

Two holos beeped in unison. Tebbith tore himself apart and leaned away to eye the juxtaposition on the floor of his tangled robe and Koth’s precisely folded shirt, each cradling a holo handset.

“Don’t,” murmured Koth.

“They’re making decisions for the galaxy out there.”

Koth groaned. “And I guess leaving everyone else to it might not be wise.”

“Koth.”

“Yes?”

Tebbith touched his hair, his hand. “I’m keeping this.”

Koth caught Tebbith’s hand and slid his fingers between. “Do,” he said. “We need to get back to it soon.”


	3. Items to Publicize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Probably the last heavy exposition, but even here there are items for the future. The Dawning Alliance agrees on what they're going to tell everyone.

Wynston, having dismissed the analysts and sent the summons, looked around the broad console-lined room that was the Alliance’s operations center. The top half of the room was brown stone with high windows looking out to the greenish sky of Ephel; the bottom half was screens and consoles, every concern of the Alliance visualized in watery color. He checked the news from Zakuul – nothing that couldn’t wait half an hour – and kept the galactic map up on the big board.

They trailed in: Tebbith and Koth, looking flushed and poorly rested; Theron, clean-shaven for the first time in two and a half weeks; Larr Gith, dressed fit for royalty with an ornate high-collared dress and a teardrop cutout over her fair breasts; Ruth, home, finally, drawn but smiling.

Last of all, _Lana_ , home, finally, armored, wary, stunning, the heart he had tried and failed to stop needing. The Alliance really could succeed here, if it had her again.

“This may be our last gathering in one place for some time,” said Wynston. “Ruth, we can handle things if you need some time off.”

“I’m fine,” said Ruth. The slim Human was in her customary grey, and her short brown hair was neatly combed back. Unadorned but unbowed, she looked like she had it together. “And you’re right, this may be our last meeting together for some time. I wouldn’t miss it.”

“That’s what I was saying,” said Larr Gith. She had opted for rose chased with gold; an excursion to stop a galactic tyrant would never rush her primping. “I’ll be returning to Zakuul to help Indo and the others with the transition. Teb, Mr. Diplomat, you should come with me.”

The Zabrak squirmed. His brown Jedi robes were a little rumpled and the brown braid at the back of his horned head was mussed. “Master Larr, I…that is…there is the question of Princess Vaylin.”

“There is?” said Koth, not pleasantly. Wynston couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the man outside his long jacket. He looked poorly rested but bright-eyed.

“Her imprisonment took all the skill and resources of the Alliance at its peak,” said Tebbith. “I should check it, and speak with her, before I go as an emissary to Zakuul.”

Larr Gith looked delicately skeptical. “Teb, I’ll take your word for it, just…don’t take too long.”

“I know how to make it very quick,” said Koth.

“No,” said Ruth. “I owe her family that.”

“Right,” growled Koth, “the family that split up to body-hop into your head and start setting fire to innocent worlds? That family?”

“Senya was my friend.”

“And you killed her when the cost of her survival got too high.”

Ruth’s narrow jaw set. “Which is exactly why I can’t do this to Vaylin. I killed her mother, I killed her brother, I destroyed her world. Tebbith, if you think you can help her…please. Do.”

Tebbith bowed. “I will do what I can. I don’t want to burden you with everything.”

“I’m going straight to Zakuul,” said Koth. “Now that I legally can. Master Larr, if you want a pilot for the trip.”

“I won’t complain,” she said silkily. “Though I hate to split you two.”

“Tebbith,” said Koth, as if the rest of the room had vanished. “Catch up when you can.”

It was rare to see the Jedi indecisive. It seemed far too private for a meeting like this. “If all goes well I’ll be hours behind,” he said quietly. “You’ll have to show me where to stay.”

Everyone in the room waited for Koth’s response.

“I’ll show you around,” he said. The corners of his mouth twitched up. “The envoy from the Dawning Alliance deserves a welcome.”

“Second envoy,” coughed Larr Gith.

Lana was still wearing the black and green armor she had worn as Scythia’s enforcer. The rest of her wardrobe had been destroyed on Odessen after she’d left for Scythia’s service, and she hadn’t returned from that service until yesterday. She didn’t have baggage on Ephel yet. “Ruth, I hesitate to bring this up now when there’s so much going on,” she said, “but we do need to decide what we’re going to feed the press. Zakuulians only know us as conquerors and I doubt the Sith Empire and Republic managed to keep up with the Zakuulian succession.”

“Understood,” said Ruth. “I…am not certain I could do every subject justice. I was just on the run for weeks, that’s not going into the press release.”

“We drafted the major points,” said Wynston. He brought the text up on the big center board.

“No,” said Ruth, reading.

“What?” said Lana.

“I had no link to the Emperor. He died seven years ago on Zakuul.”

Koth looked skeptical. “But he motivated everything that’s happened since.”

“No. His son and daughter did. Those are the enemies we were fighting. The other fight…that was mine.”

“Ruth,” said Wynston, “I understand the desire for discretion, but the reason you’re leading us is that you’re the one who fought him. For almost two years. He is the single greatest argument for your power.”

“There are other reasons. No one needs to understand what I paid to get here.”

Lana leaned forward. “She’s right, Wynston. Do we want to publicize our leader’s psychic infestations?”

Wynston looked from one to the other and back. “Do you want to pretend nothing happened?”

Ruth looked him dead in the eye, blue eyes blazing. “Yes.” He blinked first. “Next. Lana, I see you’re not mentioned here, but rumors were rife. So far as I’m concerned you went undercover to take down the Alliance’s enemies from the inside.”

“Understood. And, thank you.”

Larr Gith didn’t give Ruth a chance to answer. “We need to back up,” she said. “Ladies, gentlemen, and Ruth. Let’s start from the beginning. Because, believe me, I’ve had time to think about how I want to be immortalized. The Eternal Empire interrupted the war between the Empire and the Republic. The Outlander defeated their Emperor in a completely planned and not ‘they personally hauled us to the nerve center of the Eternal Empire and let loose an angry Darth Marr’ strike…and Arcann took over. Hubba hubba. I led the Republic’s defensive lines and I’m pretty sure Lana and Wynston were doing the same for theirs, only sneaky and probably less effective. While Ruth was out…” she locked eyes with Ruth…“anything interesting happen in her prison?”

“Not a thing,” Ruth transparently lied. Transparent to Wynston, anyway. He would have to ask her about that sometime. Gently. She wasn’t the kind of woman who thrived on secrets. And apart from Theron and her son, Wynston might still have the honor of being her closest friend.

“Blessed sleep it is,” said Larr Gith. “Must be nice. Then a coalition – that started cross-faction, we had Lana, Koth, and Teeseven from the start – freed the Outlander as a symbol of our survival. Not as our sole access to the Emperor’s mind.”

“But she became our leader,” Lana said crisply. “An argument that’s weakened if we don’t mention the Emperor.”

“Everybody knows the Wrath. She was there when I saved our asses on Yavin and she protected the Empire right up to when she famously stopped. All she needs is the civilizing influence of a superstar Jedi to make her appeal universal. Fine. That’s how we went forward. I like what you have up here, Lana. The Alliance grew in spite of Arcann and Vaylin. Darth Scythia tried to take it over and got burned, hard. Good idea skipping the bit about how we cut a deal with her. Honestly, everybody did at one time or another. We can just skip how we botched it. Her _totally unprovoked_ overreach is how we lost Odessen and moved to our next sneaky center of operations. Arcann was lured to a party on Zakuul and killed, again, completely planned and not accidental.” She pursed her lips and eyed the abrupt end to the draft release. “Vaylin…was skipped, I see. No. We need an ending for her. She was apprehended on Nathema and neutralized.”

“Saved,” said Ruth.

“Like hell,” said Larr Gith. “You don’t know that. I don’t know that. And the galaxy whose trust you’re trying to win absolutely does not want to know that. She’s not slaughtering people anymore. That is the only fact that matters.”

“She’s right,” said Wynston. “We can strengthen ‘neutralized’ to ‘removed’ and still be accurate.”

Tebbith looked pained. “That’s not what happened.”

Larr Gith tossed her distractingly curled golden hair. “Teb, we’re Jedi. We’re pretty famous for lying for the greater good.” She looked around the room. “Not to you people, obviously. But listen. When you want to know what I had for breakfast? Truth. Who I was flirting with last night? Truth, unless he or she turned out to be embarrassing or married. What direction the prime movers of the universe are going where trillions can watch? Truth, prudently edited. We’re going to help Vaylin, Teb. For reasons that are beyond me, but whatever. We’ll get Princess High Justice Empress a soul if we have to fabricate one ourselves. But we’re not going to do it where people can watch.”

Tebbith sighed. “Then our omission will protect her.”

Ruth nodded. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Or the most,” said Wynston. “If that’s the story you want we’ll tell it.”

“So that goes out,” said Lana. “Who gets more details?”

“Oh, do tell,” said Larr Gith.  “We’re including my heroism on Odessen, right? Flawless evacuation?”

“Use your discretion,” said Ruth. “Lana, I may give more details to people who need to know, but I have no intention of describing your attempt to depose me, and I’m certainly not describing your cooperation with Scythia after that didn’t work. The only part that matters was that you and she and I apprehended Vaylin. In return I would rather people not know I had the Emperor in my head in anything more than a figurative sense.”

“Understood,” said Lana.

“Heroism,” emphasized Larr Gith.

“I’ll tell all my friends,” Ruth said dryly.

“So, what, your kid?”

“And that’s how we know the crisis is past,” drawled Wynston. Perfect relapse to type. It was comforting, having Larr Gith around. When things were right you could count on her personality.

Ruth seemed to come to a decision. “Everyone? We survived this. Against all odds. We’ve had a hundred opportunities to start wars in our careers…and sometimes we succeeded.” An improbable number of significant glances made the rounds at that. “Here, finally, we’re ending one. Because of you. Let’s get this out there. Let’s focus on repairing the things that….” She looked at Theron and trailed off. “Please,” she said, and seemed to run out of words.

Wynston looked at Lana. He thought of her forcing Ruth’s command staff to a vote and leaving in the wake of Odessen’s destruction. He thought of watching her progress in spy reports, not knowing where she was going on Scythia’s orders, trying to piece it together as if she were another enemy. He thought of breaking down back into the bottle, and needing the rest of the Alliance to buoy him up long enough to see her home. Focus on repair, indeed. “Hear, hear.”

“Very well,” said Lana. “Now why don’t we see what needs repairing since this meeting started?”

 

 


	4. Heart's Ease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Ruth talk through unfinished business from her solitary quest to find the Emperor's weakness.

Theron tore himself from ops long enough to get a tray of food for Ruth. When he got back she was still there, consulting with Wynston, checking incoming data, giving orders.

It was like she had never been gone, only everything was different.

First her eyes widened, then her smile curved, when he set the tray in front of her. “Thank you,” she said. “I hadn’t noticed. What time is it?”

“About five,” said Theron.

“Did you get anything for yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“No. Listen, once the galaxy’s in order, can we talk a little?” Their previous night had been a cuddly mass of exhaustion. Not exactly what was needed to clear the air after their weeks apart.

But she smiled at him again and nothing could possibly hurt. “Of course.”

She kept working. Theron supported at the console, planning, directing the myriad arms of the Alliance. The big things, the questions from Zakuul, the vultures of the Empire and Republic, the oily overtures of the Hutts…and then, the medium questions…and then, the small questions…and then, more small questions.

“Ruth,” he said, gently. “Soon?”

She looked serious. “Okay.”

They went back to their apartment. Rylon was in his room, and Ruth checked in on him with soft words before beckoning Theron to the other bedroom.

She sat on the bed, slim, straight, alert. “I don’t know where to start,” she said softly. No commands here.

Theron knew where to start. It had bubbled from blunt to indirect back to blunt in his head, waiting for its chance to be spoken. “You told me there was nothing I could do, tied me up, and left.”

The guilt on her face didn’t make him feel better. “I felt somebody else’s will moving my hands, and he killed Arcann. And it happened again. When Lord Scourge found me. Valkorion tried to kill him using me. I couldn’t stop until Scourge had worn me down. My hands. My lightsabers. His ideas.”

“But Arcann and Scourge – one was an enemy and one was a stranger. You could’ve stopped him if he’d been threatening your friends.”

“Could I? Would I ever risk that? I could. Not. Be. Your death. I had to go. No live holocalls, nothing. I should have sent you more offline updates, though.”

“You sent me one. To be opened in case....” He took a shaky breath. “I didn't open it. I never will. But a little more of the ordinary updates might've helped.”

“I was preoccupied.”

“I know.”

She shivered. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I didn’t see a choice.”

He reached for her hand. He had to make sure the cringe in her voice didn’t translate, would never translate, to another physical withdrawal. “I know you were scared. I’m just not convinced you were right.”

She took the dual accusation of fear and mistakenness…meekly. That frightened him more than anything. “You know, I…I’ve had negotiations going through my head all day. Setting boundaries for about five thousand new problems. And this is the only one I could think about. I know you think I was wrong. If I thought I was wrong I…think I would’ve broken weeks ago. So I don’t.” Her eyes widened further, blue, guileless, pained. “–Theron, you said I told you there was nothing you could do, but there was, you were here, you were the entire point, as long as I knew you were holding things together I could concentrate, I needed you to be who you are where you are where so I can come home, so one thing will succeed even if I failed out there. Even if all I could do for you was die before he got too powerful.”

“ _Don’t_ say that.”

“It’s all I had to think about!”

“Me too!”

Her remaining self-possession shivered. “Theron, no,” she whispered. “I left everything in your hands.”

He had to touch her hair. “Not everything.”

“I came back,” she said. “Can we still…can we?”

He had watched every minute of her interactions since their victory on Zakuul. He’d had this crazy thought, that all he knew about her before _him_ was that she was sad, and maybe everything he learned after that would go away the minute _he_ did...but it didn’t. Ruth turned down the throne. She helped her people. In this, in everything, she was the woman he was in love with.

Next time they would face it together. Or not at all. He had a feeling she knew that.

“We can,” he said.  

“Take me back?” she said voicelessly.

“Hey,” he said. “Let’s get married or something.” He sat beside her and pulled her in close and her hard figure relaxed a little against him. “Well. That went better than expected.”

“I won’t do this to you again. Not ever.”

“I know, babe.” She turned her face up to let him kiss her forehead. Funny, how she fit completely within his arms, as if that titanic soul could be tied to something as slender as this. She slid her arms around him into a tight, full circle, and he murmured to her. “We’ll be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The important thing is, this is about their relationship, not her inner experience.…


	5. Empress: The First Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tebbith visits the Dawning Alliance's newest prisoner: Vaylin.

The entrance to the Ephel prisons was an unremarkable door nested among twisting passageways in the depths of the temple. Tebbith navigated holding a cool white lamp. Down the narrow, curving steps, down into a wide and high corridor. Two guards sat at a control station at the base of the stairs. They had monitors up, a holoprojection for each cell. The cells themselves were around a corner: broad, relatively low, showing living quarters that were generous but for the fact that they were cross sectioned lengthwise by red forcefields.

He passed Major Fadreleth, and she was sleeping. He passed Leontyne Saresh, and she was sitting on the edge of her bed, glaring.

He came to the different cage. The one he felt in the Force, glowing around a bleak hole. And in that dead bubble was the woman named Vaylin.

She sat on one armchair. She had smashed the other, having interpreted it as a mockery of her solitude. Maybe it was. He wasn’t sure when they would get enough security together to open up and replace it.

Tebbith quietly and methodically reinforced the bindings that kept the Force well away from the fallen empress’s control.

“Princess,” he said.

She glared as if noticing him for the first time. “Empress, you worm. Empress.”

“It was not my intent to greet what you became. Do you know me?”

She leaned back and spread her hands on the arms of her chair. She was doing her best to look down her nose at him, despite the meter’s worth of altitude difference. “You’re one of the Outlander’s clueless lackeys,” she said coolly.

“Arguably so,” he said calmly. “My name is Tebbith. I have hoped to speak with you for a long time.”

“During my campaigns, you thought longingly of…talking? What kind of idiot are you?”

“Jedi. And a diplomat for difficult links.”

Her lip curled. “Did you ever meet a Zakuulian diplomat? Three hundred meters long with eight primary batteries. They’re a little hard to miss.”

“I had not realized you were so involved with your fleet.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Vaylin’s eyes narrowed. “That droid bitch may have broken the GEMINI control but those ships were mine. Mine! I should have cratered your hovel here while they still obeyed me! It’s a mistake I will rectify, lackey.”

“Still the Empress,” he said.

“Always the Empress,” she snapped. “You cannot break me with your sad little cage.”

“I have no desire to break you,” he said. “Is there anything you require here?”

“Freedom. A few choice heads on a plate.” She smiled, not pleasantly. “I’ll let you know the rest if you let me out.”

“These I cannot provide. And I fear that your current accommodations are necessary for a time.”

“’A time’? Until I drop dead.” Her nostrils flared. Her orange eyes narrowed, luminous but not tearful. “There’s nothing you can do to me that wasn’t done the first time I was bound.”

“The time that stole your childhood.” He had seen the nauseating evidence on Nathema. “There are no experiments here, Princess. There is no one trying to bind your brain. Your jail is here,” and he gestured around her, “like this. Not inside your mind. Not ever again.”

“Won’t you rewrite me like you tried to rewrite my brother?” She enunciated each word with disdain. “Voss rituals. Jedi techniques. Your Outlander didn’t bring me here for my health.”

“Is healing such a terrible prospect?”

“Is dying? You’ll scrub out every inconvenient thing about me. Heal me right out of existence. Do you look forward to meeting your own personal construct, made to specifications? Will she be as docile as you desire? Do you think you will have my power then? Because we both know that’s your plan.”

And it terrified her.

And, to be honest, from her point of view she might have reason for terror. Healing was the only realistic option for her. Cleanse away the years of abuse and rage, and what was left would be a soul, unique and precious as every soul, possibly brighter than most. But this Vaylin would count that as an act of violence. She would call her own inalienable self a stranger, and hate her for not having suffered enough.

“Vaylin,” he said. “I don’t hate you.”

She bared her teeth. “Liar. If you’d told me that a week ago I would have had your name bombed into the surface of my next conquest…just to remind you who you’re dealing with.”

“Causing pain was the only way you had of affecting the world. I think perhaps a physical jail doesn’t restrict you much beyond where you already were enduring.”

“You know nothing about restriction. Or endurance. Did you know your parents, Jedi? Did they tell you you were destined for great things? Or did they force you to fight for the barest scrap of acknowledgment? Did they drag glory out of you, chemically, physically, day after month after year?”

She was lashing, but she was engaging. “My mentors told me to turn my back on greatness. To erase myself in pursuit of the common good.”

She stared and cocked her head as if expecting more. He didn’t have any. It was just the truth. She spoke in a lower, thicker voice. “I think I prefer mine.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Tebbith, “your fate will not be decided in the next few days. The Eternal Empire has been disrupted, the Alliance finally brought to full strength.”

“Do you think I care what your Alliance is doing?”

“You deserve to know. I must go soon. I will come see you once I return.”

“Do you know you’re the first person to come down here?” Vaylin said hurriedly. Then, closer to her sardonic normalcy, “Your leader, my _savior_ , is afraid to face me.”

If anything actually frightened Ruth Niral, Tebbith imagined that it might be fighting a battle without lightsabers. Especially with a woman close to her age, close to her power, close to her grievances. “She faced your mother. She faced your brother. She faced your father. You must be different, and perhaps she does not yet know how to face that. But she will come.”

“Was it you who convinced her to keep me alive? If you want my gratitude don’t hold your…no, on second thought, hold your breath. I should like to see you die.”

“Your life was her decision. She is a guardian, not a warlord…no matter what the Emperor tried to turn her into.”

She arched a thin eyebrow. “Father’s stamp isn’t that easy to erase,” she purred. “Hmm…maybe I’ll just let her discover that for herself. She thinks she got rid of him just because he died again. She’s very wrong.”

“I can bring her your warning.” She glared at him for that, and he took it. He was not here to elicit remorse. He was not here to fling guilt or levy justice. He was here as sunlight on the scene of a forest fire. A response might grow to him from some buried seed, but only slowly, and only through gentle perseverance against the layers of ash. “Now I must go. I look forward to seeing you again.”

“Are you serious?” She gave a supremely derisive gagging noise. “How can you live with being you?”

Tebbith thought about it. “What else would I ever be?”

She sobered, clearly applying his words to something else. “Remember that question,” she rasped, “when you come for me again.”


	6. The Mediator

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth gets a visitor from the Light Side Sith Academy on Arrend. An invitation is issued. Rylon asks about his father.

Ruth walked with Rylon through the temple complex and out to the landing pads. Wind was flaring starlit dust off the plateau overlooking the pads, but at ground level the air was still. Waiting.

Ruth shook off her worry. Jaesa had been nothing but welcoming on their sole visit since…everything. Jaesa had seen the corruption in her, more clearly than anyone could. And yet hadn’t been angry. Ruth had supposedly been Jaesa’s Sith master, but Jaesa understood more about living than Ruth ever had.

She appeared wearing plain burgundy tunic and tan pants. She beamed at Ruth. Then she noticed the person at Ruth’s side and beamed wider. “Rylon!” she said. “I haven’t seen you in almost eight years! My name is Jaesa Brindel.”

Ruth’s son folded his hands in his sleeves. “Hi,” he said solemnly.

“Jaesa helped to protect you when you were very young,” said Ruth.

Rylon looked attentive. “Do you know my father?”

Ruth winced. Jaesa looked at Ruth. Ruth said “I told him about it, and Quinn’s current career.” Wow, did that make her sound like a terrible mother. She hadn’t exactly meant to let it spill. “Everything before that sequence is fair game.”

Jaesa nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I knew your father. He was very brave.”

“Don't you hate him too?”

Jaesa looked at Ruth again. Ruth just nodded permission. “No,” said Jaesa. “He did something wrong, but I don't hate him.”

“Forgive me if I’m anxious to get to it,” said Ruth.

“To what?” said Rylon.

“Jaesa has a special talent, Rylon. She can see to the true nature of people.”

“Like if you’re bad or good?”

“With some nuance. Jaesa…do I need to do anything?”

“Relax,” Jaesa said gently. She closed her eyes and bowed her head.

“She's strong,” whispered Rylon. Ruth took his hand and said nothing. The glow seemed to surround all three as Jaesa opened her eyes.

The women looked at each other.

“You made it,” said Jaesa.

Ruth felt her mouth nervously trying to smile. “Am I what I was before all this?”

There was a tactful pause. “You've matured some.”

Ruth reached out with both hands. “Take me back?”

Jaesa took them and squeezed. “Gladly.”

Rylon bobbed. “What did you see?”

“Love,” said Jaesa. “Right down to the center. She's not hiding.”

“You can see the Emperor not being there? I couldn't tell. She just looked different. I didn’t think it was her. How do you know?”

“My power isn't widely shared, and I don't think I could teach it. But I think you saw what you needed to see. Now. When am I seeing you both on Arrend?”

Rylon’s eyes went round. “Really? Mom, can we go?”

Ruth made a face at Jaesa. “Manipulator.”

“I've got more than one special skill, my friend. When will you be coming?”

“She has an Academy there,” said Ruth. “For Light Side Force users.”

“Like Jedi?” said Rylon.

“We…don’t exactly use their rules,” said Jaesa. “It’ll be easier to describe in person.”

“Meddler,” said Ruth.

“The invitation is open,” said Jaesa. “It’s one of the safest places in the galaxy for any lawful guest. That’s a promise.”

“Come inside. Have a seat. Have some food.”

“I can’t stay long, but…I wanted to see you.”

“And you did, Jaesa. On behalf of the Alliance and me, welcome to Ephel.” Ruth led the way.

*

They got food in the cafeteria and brought it back to Mom and Theron’s apartment to eat. Rylon tried to contain his impatience until Mom finally got a call from ops and had to run.

Mrs. Brindel turned to him. “I sense you are strong in the Force. You must have plenty of practice here.”

“I practice with some Voss and Jedi and Sith. They don’t argue as much as you might think.” Not the point. “Was my father mean?”

Mrs. Brindel raised her eyebrows, but her voice never left its steady smoothness. “He was very businesslike. Some people read that wrong. He got impatient occasionally, but in general he was always eager to help.”

“Did you like him?”

“I did. I suppose I do.”

“Mom still hates him.”

“I am not surprised. Does she keep you from talking to him?”

Rylon fidgeted.

Mrs. Brindel looked thoughtful. “Do you know where he is now?”

“He’s with the Imperials. I…stopped holoing him. When I found out. About what he did to Mom.”

“That was your mother’s choice?”

“No.” But Mom would never ever forgive. That hurt was what washed out the stuff about Father searching for both of them for those years, after Rylon had been abducted to Tython and Ruth to Zakuul.

“Was he ever unkind to you on your holos?”

“Nah. He talks a good game.”

“Do you think you might choose to talk to him again someday?”

“I don’t know. After what he did…”

“Rylon, that was the hardest decision he ever made. And we all know he made the wrong one. But that wasn’t his sole definition. He loved your mother more than anything except duty. And that’s more than most people ever get.”

Father, that soldier, that stranger. That man who seemed so tense until every time he looked at Rylon and smiled. That person nobody on Ephel ever wanted to talk about. “Did he make her laugh?”

“Quinn? Well…not often, as such. He made her smile.”

“Theron makes her laugh.”

“I’m glad. She deserves it.”

“Are you going to eat that?” He pointed at the melting ice cream at the edge of her tray.

“I think I’m full,” said Mrs. Brindel. “Take it, please.”

Rylon took a spoonful. “He…” It was painful to think about, but Mrs. Brindel was so comfortable, so attentive. So knowledgeable about this dark spot in his mother’s history. “When I asked if he’d do it if he knew about me he didn’t answer right away.”

She looked grave, not horrified. “Quinn always looks at all the angles. Usually he’s so fast it looks like he hasn’t hesitated at all. It’s actually a remarkable talent and it’s a skill we all relied on, for a long time. If something actually slows him down? It probably means he’s fighting what he ought to say against what he wants to.”

“And what he ought to say was…”

“He would have attacked you and your mother even if he knew about you. That’s the Imperial talking.”

“So what he wanted to say was…”

“Rylon, I knew your father and I knew you. I even supervised sometimes when he came to visit you while your mother was away. And I know he adored you. He doesn’t talk about his feelings – he never will, if they might clash with his duties – but don’t ever doubt that. He was crazy about you. And probably still is.”

Rylon dropped his voice. “What if I needed somebody to listen while I holoed him?” Mom had once supervised those calls; somewhere along the way she’d started making other people do it. No, not somewhere. Father’s sole visit to Ephel, when everybody thought Mom was dead over Dromund Kaas. After that day, and Rylon learning the truth, and them saying whatever it was they’d said after he bolted, Mom had never faced Father again. “Could you do it?”

“By your mother’s leave? If the scheduling works out, I don’t see why not. It’ll be nice to see him again.”

Rylon finished his ice cream. Well, Mrs. Brindel’s ice cream. He had a lot to think about.


	7. Marvelous Doings on Zakuul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Larr Gith gets the Zakuul party started to work toward democracy. Indo Zal helps some, but not as much as one might hope.

Zakuul, in a grand hall not far from the original palace. The evening was balmy, the horizon pink, the air free, the glittering streets patrolled by Skytroopers that hadn’t fired a shot since the mysterious agent of the Dawning Alliance had converted their software. The world wasn’t certain yet, but neither was it suffocating in arbitrary royal proclamations.

Dinner was raucous and lavish. Indo Zal took modest credit for arranging the event, and the major figures of the Zakuulian resistance got a meal the likes of which none of them had seen in months or years. Rebels seldom got catering.

Larr Gith soaked up the admiration from all sides. She was in her best gold sheath with orange mankaseye pins gemming her high-piled hair. In three-inch heels she towered over the women and more than half of the men.

The topic was hopes and dreams: the sudden possibility of enacting change, an impulse that had been held under firm suppression for time out of memory. Larr Gith was happy to be the source for information about how the Republic and Jedi managed their domains. As an ambassador she was pretty sure she was doing Tebbith proud. She could go beyond that, but it had been a long time since she’d bothered wondering whether she was doing the Jedi Council proud.

“My lady,” said Indo Zal when he stood, hours later, “are you staying nearby? Can I direct you to the taxi stand?”

“Mm,” she said, hoping, and said her farewells to the remaining rebels. “I could use a local guide.”

He came with her. She used the taxi ride to get sketches from him of the major political players, and she took careful note of his descriptions. This galaxy was about people, and the more information she had about people, the better. Let Wynston follow the jealousies and Lana follow the grudges and Vette follow the money. Larr Gith followed the success.

The taxi stopped outside the high-end hotel she had expensed to the Alliance’s coffers. Indo Zal leaned attentively out of the door after her.

She smiled. “Look, I’ve got some more local improvements in mind. Very local. Want to come up to my room to hear it?”

“I can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing. Please, lead the way.”

He followed just behind her left shoulder, matching his stride to hers. Oh, well trained. She reached the lift and waited. “Did you get what you wanted out of today’s session?” she said conversationally.

“Ask me again in a few hours.”

“Ooh. Plans within plans, Mr. Zal.”

“I’m devious like that, Lady Gith.”

“Please. For you, it’s Larr.”

They walked again in matching rhythm to her room. The place was brightly lit and comfortable. Indo unselfconsciously left her side and walked to the window overlooking a statue-studded garden. “This is it,” he said quietly. “It’s really happening. Everything I worked for…”

“Everything you’re going to get, Indo. We made it.”

“And I have you to thank.” He turned. He had the nicest blue eyes. “Larr, you have been more than any of us could have hoped for.”

She smiled, slid a fingertip to the hollow of her throat, and walked up beside him. “So…thanking?”

He looked up at her. “I don’t…have credits.” He took a golden loop of hair from where it had nearly come loose at her shoulder, and set it in place. “There’s no political capital I can have that you haven’t already exceeded.”

She took his wrist and ran manicured fingertips up the inside. “Any other ideas come to mind?”

“Larr, I would be here even if I didn’t owe you everything. As it is…” He twined his arms around her neck. She met his mouth halfway.

He’d been a pretty good kisser when she as a total stranger had swept him to a corner on the street and concealed him by means of making out until the guard patrol looked away. Now, prepared, lightly tipsy, he was intense, sweet, _extremely_ competent. He had either excellent training or borderline precognitive ability to predict her desires. Not bad. Not bad at all.

They had a lot of formal clothes to get through, but they managed. Her hairpins scattered here and there on the floor as he worked them out with deft fingers, and he smoothed her streaming golden hair over parts of her body like a painter trying to decide on a composition. They were all good, of course. The arrangements slowed and started involving a lot more backdrop-stroking as she wore down his concentration. No need to be anything but herself with another guy whose world she had personally saved and now had the leisure to rock.

The day having been long and the night somewhat extended, they both dropped off in the afterglow. He stayed separate in sleep, which wasn’t bad. Only, when she woke, it was to his pressure at the far edge of the mattress.

She held still. He sat up and eased to his feet.

“Mm?” mumbled Larr Gith, wiping the corner of her very sexy and sweet-smelling mouth.

“Oh!” he said. “No,” he said. “Not exactly,” he said. “Just need the bathroom.” He padded off and spent several minutes in the room.

Larr Gith, suspicious, stayed still.

When he emerged it was to sneak for the hall door. “What are you doing?” said Larr Gith.

He sighed uncomfortably. “I…need to go.”

“Why? Let’s assume I can reach into your brain and pull your reason out if I want to. Pretty badass ability, wouldn’t you agree? Jedi specialty.”

He flinched. “Larr…my lady. I can’t be seen leaving here in the light of day.”

That got her hackles up. “How’s that?”

The Zakuulian checked his mussed hair. “Larr, this was…that was. When I thought all I was ever going to get was ten seconds of you kissing me like your life depended on it, I never dreamed…this is. But this can't happen again.”

Larr Gith stiffened. “Ex- _cuse_ me?”

“This is a sensitive time. I have ideas, ideas Zakuul needs. If I am seen as a pawn of the Alliance my credibility is diminished.”

“That's not all that's getting diminished.”

It was just a blink, but it was a blink that told her he’d been reminded just who he was tangling with. “A man of my status can only fantasize about being the one to make you look good,” he said. “If all goes well we may speak again in less fraught circumstances.”

She sat up, naked and stunning, dammit. “Then me and the parts you are never getting a glimpse of again will see you after sunrise. After all, we’ve got a planet to patch up.”

His jaw went slack for just a moment. “And you’re not going to give that up just because one man…”

“No. I’m not. Why screw everyone else over just because you screwed me?”

He took in a deep breath. Relieved. So he wanted it both ways, did he? “Magnificent,” he said, and got out of there before she could make up her mind whether to throw something at him.

Larr Gith flopped back and started a fluent string of withering criticisms for the next time he wanted half a second of her time. It was a damn good thing that everyone else she had met yesterday seemed reasonable. This planet had its hazards, but it needed her. She understood that.

She bundled up away from the other warm spot on the bed. Then she went back to sleep, which took some of the sting out.


	8. Precious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vette and Calline work on restoring the things looted by Zakuulian collectors.

Vette looked around the sparkling Zakuulian vault. It was yet another imperial facility, and it was her job to repatriate the treasures stored therein. Ruth had asked her especially to work on it – both identification and transport. Calline was along to solve any problem Vette couldn’t. The return of the valuables looted by Zakuul would be an important step toward peace with the big factions. So here they were, and Mako and Akaavi were working from the far corner of the room.

“Three mil,” said Calline. Even her low voice waked echoes under the vaulted dome.

“What,” said Vette, “for the whole place? Talk about lowballing.”

“No. For this one.” The armored Chiss pointed at a gleaming case that enclosed a bulky purple stone. “I charge extra for protecting hardware.”

“You’re very mercenary, Calline. Probably because you’re a mercenary.”

Calline gave a flip salute.

Vette came over to check the stone. Her heart seized when she saw the carvings on it. “This is Twi’lek,” she said. “It’s ancient.”

Calline pointed at the little plate that contained the Zakuulian owner’s brag of origin. “Moff Poris’s private collection.”

“Conquered ER 68. Gotta be a Zakuulian calendar. Dated from the first appearance of Big Daddy, maybe? Why couldn’t they use the Treaty of Planet They’ve Never Heard Of like normal people?” She studied the case once more. “Well, Moff Poris isn’t getting it back. This is going to Ryloth.”

“Not our job.”

Vette glared up at her partner. “It is my job. You going to stop me? Take it right back to the thief who looted it from my people?”

Calline looked from Vette to the artifact and back, nonplussed. “No?”

“That’s better. Help me open it.” It wasn’t an ultramax security mechanism but it did take four hands. Calline left the transparisteel in Vette’s hands and strode off to bring the hovercart.

“Plasmajack would know what this says,” said Vette, slipping on her gloves. “Ryloth will be buzzing with the stuff we recover from these collections.”

Calline stopped the cart beside the case. “Sentimental.”

“Proud.” She shook her lekku. “Do you understand that, somewhere in that shower of credits I’m watching in your head right this minute? Isn’t there something out there you would toss a job for if it came down to the choice?”

Calline looked down at her with those unsettling red eyes. She looked at the stone. “Someones,” she said at length, and helped Vette settle the find in carefully packed foam.


	9. Political Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tebbith reports on the major powers on Zakuul. Ruth and Theron investigate a potential ally on a border world.

The palace was a change of pace from Ephel. Instead of rugged stone and whispery tunnels there were white pavilions and elaborate gardens. The sky was a confection of creamy clouds, the breeze nothing but a rustle in the curtains and a freshness on the air. Ruth took her call in a little sitting room that Theron had approved for guarded communication. After she checked the curtains.

Tebbith showed up over her holo looking chipper. Ruth could think of no other term for it. Wynston, holoing from Ephel, looked professional but for his crooked smile.

“Good morning,” said Ruth. “How are things?”

“The constitutional convention begins formal meetings tomorrow,” said Tebbith. “Koth has received a hero’s welcome.” His cheeks definitely darkened when he said that. It was adorable. “Larr Gith has been instrumental in calming fears. There is much good energy there.”

“Local authorities, I assume,” said Wynston. “Who else?”

“Well, I have reports from some twelve Zakuulian organizations. The Republic has sent a diplomat, as has the Sith Empire. As have, strangely, a contingent of loyalist Knights.”

“…Loyal to what?” said Ruth.

“I have been meaning to ask them,” Tebbith said uneasily. “I fear they have mentioned some fantastical rumors about the fate of the Emperor.”

“Shut that up,” said Ruth, too quickly. “By any means necessary.”

“Madam Outlander! I will, of course, do what I can. But it’s only a rumor.”

“Ah,” she said. “Of course.” People reacted badly to a lot of things she said lately. Didn’t she have exactly the force and delivery she had always had? That hadn’t changed…right?

“If you have the chance to visit,” said Tebbith, “you would be very welcome.”

Wynston cut in. “That may not be practical just yet.”

Ruth nodded, grateful for him hurrying even faster than she did. She wondered whether he understood why. “I’m actually here on one of the border worlds. One planet at a time, showing them the Outlander is aware of their situation and willing to protect.”

“A prudent move. Please let me know if I may be of service.”

“Look after Koth. Try not to let Larr Gith sleep with the entire convention.  I trust you to work out the rest.” The really strange thing was, Jedi though he was, she did.

She deactivated the holo and stepped through the glass door to a little balcony overlooking the garden. Green and grey leaves, flowers in three dozen colors, wiry arches and spires covered in flowering vines. It wasn’t the only garden she had ever been in, but even under clouds it brightened a view more than the mere touch of an alien sun could.

Theron scuffed his foot on the floor to announce his presence. She kept looking over the verdant landscape. He wrapped his arms around her waist and leaned in to murmur. “How’s Zakuul?”

“Distant.” The best thing it could be. She didn’t want to explain why, and cleared her throat. “Tebbith’s doing fine. They’re gathering their leaders.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with. I think.”

She smiled, leaning back. “If Larr Gith and Tebbith can’t chivvy them into democracy Zakuul will at least unite to kick them out, and our government problem is solved.”

“All planned out. I like it. As long as that's not actually our plan.”

She turned in his arms. “Oh, Theron. Never change.” Then, lower, “I still feel bad about sending you out solo.”

“Someone needed to look innocent sleeping in.”

“Truly worthy of my talents. See anything interesting?”

Theron slid his arm to her waist and walked back into the sitting room. He sealed the door before he spoke. “Our host is new. Brand new staff, brand new guards. But he is local. He was the first to lie down for Zakuul and the first to jump back into the capitol after. All this planet’s institutional experience seems to have come from the old prime minister, and she disappeared months ago. According to records here she’s under house arrest nearby. And he’s thinking of tying off that loose end.”

“You found out all that just skulking around.”

He grinned. “You did hire the best.”

“Am I paying you?”

The grin turned toward a smirk. “What do you want me to say to that?”

She laughed a little and hugged him. “Breakfast with the big guy. Arrange a diplomatic link. Make our excuses, and then dinner under house arrest, discreetly. Public service in Zakuul, as a representative, as anything, would put her out of this man’s reach. We can make her the offer, anyway. What do you think?”

“I think we may have the friend we need by sundown. Let’s get something to eat, shall we? We’d better get our host’s side of the story.”

“I’m Sith. He’s a tough. I must have seen it before.”

“Ruth…with all due respect, you don’t know the first thing about being a tough.”

“Oh. Better interview him, then.” She kissed him, a soft clinging kiss, and the sun swelled outside, warming the room in an instant. “Let’s.”


	10. Empress: The Second Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wynston checks in on the Alliance's most dangerous prisoner.

Wynston walked down the long stairs. The stone here was unlike Ephel’s surface stone; it was dark and slick and featureless. Horror stories were written for depths like this.

At the bottom he said, “I’m going to test the cameras on cell three. Don’t be alarmed if there’s an outage.”

The two guards looked up from their displays. One spoke: “Commander’s orders were–”

“You know who I am? I will ensure there are no consequences for you. I’m going to test the cameras.”

The two guards exchanged glances, then let him go.

And that was Wynston, wasn’t it? He was the charmer and the cheat, the affable and the assassin, the blandishment and the blade. He continued.

The chamber here in the depths was a work of black-humored art. He turned off the cameras and scanned. A shallow room, a privacy screen, one smashed chair, one intact one, one narrow bed. Spacious, but cheerless. Part of Wynston found the exercise repugnant. Part of him had to admire. With the touch of a button, the Force was cut, and he had the advantage over some of the foremost powers in the galaxy. What Force-blind could say no to that?

It was sick, but consummately pragmatic. 

Former Empress Vaylin was slouched in the corner, hands on knees. In stillness she was a tensed spring or else a stone suspended on a fraying rope. She looked so…small, and Ruth had such hopes for her. He needed to get a hook in. It might come in handy someday.

She looked up as Wynston came close.

“Vaylin,” he said.

She snarled and looked back down.

“I had wondered when I would get the chance to speak with you.”

No reaction.

“Ruth thinks we can reach you,” said Wynston. “Help you into a better life, one where you’re free for the first time. Really free, to pursue the life a person deserves instead of the one you inherited.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” she said hoarsely. “Your Outlander told me the same thing when they stuck me in here. So?”

“She thinks we can reach you.” He paused, wondering for the thousandth time why. “I think you’ll be in here until someone puts you out of your misery.” He waited for her reaction and didn’t get one. “But women have surprised me before.”

Her head jerked up and her hood fell back. “I’m not a woman to you. Do you understand? You are filth. You are the last waste product of a rotting galaxy. You are not worthy to breathe the air molecules blessed by my presence!”

“Believe that I am thoroughly dispassionate when I say, nevertheless, you are a woman. And you might surprise me. But you haven’t done so yet.” Good, he had her attention. He started pacing, just enough to keep her eye. “I saw you in action. I’m willing to admit it, you were awe-inspiring. You reached too far. You grasped at the stars and they punished you for it. Made you less than you were. Put on a leash, and didn’t tell you it was there until the first time it cut your neck.” He stopped front and center, one hand at his throat, the other at his back, eyes only for the woman in her cage. He didn’t have to pretend to be dramatic. “You and I have something in common.”

“I highly doubt it.” She bared her teeth. “Your horned friend has checked the bindings on this cell. Aren’t you going to test the walls? Check the forcefield boundaries?” She leaned forward. “Try the keyword?”

Wynston kept his expression still. “No,” he said.

“Don’t you want to know whether your interruption was enough to ruin the deprogramming? Say it.”

“No.”

“Say it!” Her voice ran from a shriek to a rasp. “Say ‘kneel before the dragon of Zakuul.’”

“I’m not the man for that, Vaylin.” After all that had happened…no. 

She sneered. “And is that how I’m supposed to know I can trust you?”

“No. That’s how you know you haven’t hit my trigger yet. I’m not interested in being your friend, Vaylin, but I am interested in you. I have some news you might like.”

“Nothing you can say would interest me.”

“The man who did all this to you.”

Vaylin’s eyes widened. “Father did it all.”

“And his Anomid friend implemented it. Regardless, you may like to hear that they both died surrounded by enemies, afraid, and in pain.”

Vaylin was watching him with interest now. “You're not exactly urging me to be well behaved.”

“What would be the point?”

“Who are you?”

“That's not important.”

“When I get out of here I'll cut it out of you syllable by syllable.”

Good thing he wasn’t here to get friendly. “The others call me Wynston.”

“I don't care about your name, you fool. Who are you?”

Wynston hesitated, calculating. “I'm one of the Outlander's advisers.”

“You were on Nathema, volleying gnats at me.”

“I'm a very active adviser.”

“Have you known her long, adviser?”

Wynston smiled blandly. “Someone's going to notice the surveillance outage soon. Good night, Vaylin.”

She stood and hunched forward, fists at her sides. “Don’t think I’m grateful for the scraps of your attention, alien!”

“I’m not your Jedi guardian, nor your Sith rival. Gratitude would be sorely misplaced. Good night.”

He had no conclusions, not even a certainty that he agreed with Ruth’s decision to keep her alive. Still, if Tebbith was going to keep playing good cop, it might be prudent to have an established bad one. And he had been entirely honest about one thing: she and he did have that keyword trauma in common. And both of them had survived it.

It was the kind of thing, he knew better than anyone, that made one dangerous.


	11. The Orange Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rylon Niral's studies result in another vision...cryptic as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a strong contributor to anything, I just enjoyed the cultural inventions. Ru-Baden is the Voss Interpreter that the Three assigned to the Alliance after Larr Gith browbeat them into it. He is there so Sana-Rae the Mystic will not be alone in a strange land with uninterpreted visions.
> 
> Rylon chose to study efforts at prophecy some time ago in the hopes of preventing re-Quinning.

Rylon Niral was eleven. He sat in the lightly echoing grotto. Stone arched high above and all around, dotted with soft yellow lamps and brushed by dusty shafts of sunlight; the little river spilled from the stone face at one side, flowed in a shallow channel across, and slid out the other. Around him the Force users of the Alliance went about their daily exercises: some jabbing practice blades at training dummies, some levitating spiky assemblies of loose parts, some speaking softly in pairs and circles, some just meditating amid piles of red cushions. It was Rylon’s favorite part of the Ephel complex. Here the teachers were kind, the rivals survivable, the lessons unending. His abducted childhood on Tython faded day by day, dry requirements and soft-voiced bullying far gone. Here was better.

He ran.

Ru-Baden and Sana-Rae were in a shaded nook and Rylon caught himself to stop, chest out. He could feel his cowlick waving with the motion.

“Master Ru-Baden,” he said. “You have to see this.”

“A vision,” said Ru-Baden with Voss disapproval. Just because Rylon wasn’t supposed to go seeking these anymore. Well, sometimes it mattered too much to leave alone.

“It doesn't make sense,” said Rylon. “I tried but it doesn't. I need an interpreter. Please. It's dangerous.”

Sana-Rae looked ready to disapprove, too. Adults always did when he tried something past what he was supposed to do. “This came on its own?” she said.

He nodded. Once he’d meditated enough it just showed right up, which was practically what she’d said.

“Then we must handle it.” Sana-Rae was always so calm, even after all the things she’d seen. “Ru-Baden. Will you assist?”

“Sit,” said Ru-Baden. Rylon dropped. Ru-Baden knelt before him. “You are prepared to see again?”

Rylon screwed his eyes shut and nodded. He knew to wait for Ru-Baden’s touch on his temple. He knew to summon it all forth again as the Voss said, “See.”

Emotion had a complex relationship to vision, and Rylon understood that things he found upsetting often ended up shrouded in symbolism. That was one of an Interpreter’s jobs. He hated that whole angle. The more he cared, the clearer his vision needed to be, yet reality did just the opposite.

He stood in a sepia toned scene. He sensed Ru-Baden beside him on a murky plane that stretched out in all directions, flat. There was a giant stone standing before them, and from time to time a glowing ring would race across the landscape, pass over them, and continue on.

“Your mother,” said Ru-Baden, and in a tiny burst of clarity Rylon could see the person inside the stone. Not with his eyes, but he knew. “She is in grave danger. The clouds, you must remember.”

“I see that,” said Rylon-Niral. The fluff-bellied clouds above started to churn. The infinite plane buckled and crumpled, leaving only a small platform that now raced from one glowing ring to another. He hadn’t understood that movement at first. Now that he did he waited for Ru-Baden to explain how the refinement was helpful.

Instead, Ru-Baden said “You do not recognize this world.”

“No.”

“I see nothing beyond these rings.” Then what was the point of inviting him? Rylon saw out of the corner of his eye as Ru-Baden turned toward an angle of the vision that Rylon had been unable to view. Leaning on the Interpreter’s will, he managed to force himself around.

There was a blur, and at chest height before it an orange flare.

“It's a blaster bolt,” Rylon said thickly.

“That is no harpoon or flechette.” Ru-Baden sounded disgusted. “Is it what your weapons look like?”

Rylon-Niral nodded. “It's shooting at Mom.”

“There may be more to this,” said Ru-Baden. “Look around. Are there others?”

“I don't know. Can there be somebody else with her?”

“It is possible.”

“I…I think there are. Not strangers.” It was an intuition, no more, loosened by his companion. “Maybe they make that guy miss.”

“Her life...” Ru-Baden hesitated too long…“is safest with allies.”

Rylon swallowed. “Will she die?”

Ru-Baden turned in a full circle, looking up and down and out. “She is strong,” he said.

“Will she die.”

“If she comes with friends, one shot may not matter.” Ru-Baden took an interest in one edge of the platform. The stone abruptly shivered and fell to roll to it. “She falls. She is alive to fall. Do you see?”

Only as a blur springing from the stone. It seemed to leap, not flop, down into the nothing below the platform. It was a controlled motion.

“Where does she fall to?”

“I cannot see.”

Rylon took a breath and found it shaky. “So somebody with an orange blaster is gonna shoot her...on a bunch of rings, on a cloudy day, and she jumps down. Is that all I get? I can't do anything with it!”

“Peace, Rylon-Niral. Prophecy does not come for our convenience.”

“But I can’t help anybody with this.”

Ru-Baden joined his hands in his sleeves. “Why must this help something? Are you not your mother's son and your teachers' student? Have you failed in these? No. You have all your honor.”

All the honor and none of the impact. Didn’t anything upset Voss? “I failed if I can't find a way to help her.”

“Your utility is not who you are.”

He made a face. “She says that too.”

“And you dispute it? To be where you are put, with patience and fortitude – this is how one is Voss. Surely Human, as well.”

He didn’t understand. Rylon seriously doubted he even had a mother. “I'd better warn her.”

“Do not be disappointed. Prophecy chose you, and you have been an apt student. Tell her of this planet. When she reaches it, she should not go alone. Now come. Let us return.”

“Is there anything else here?”

A stone, a blaster, a platform, a ring. “Wind,” said the Voss. “It reverses so quickly.”

Yeah,” Rylon said glumly. “I get that.”

Rylon slumped out of the gold-painted scene and back to the dimness of the grotto. Sana-Rae was watching, unblinking. Ru-Baden kept his eyes closed. Rylon squirmed. “Why can’t I see more?” he said.

“It is as it is,” Sana-Rae said in her strange brushed voice. “Among Humans, I have learned a concept you may have heard, that the parts of life unpredicted are the most crucial ones, the parts in which freedom is a virtue. The concept…does not translate well to Voss, but I offer it to you.”

“She shouldn’t be free to get shot.”

“I understand. Will you tell her?”

“Yeah.” Rylon dashed a sleeve across his stinging eyes. “She’d better know.”


	12. The Status Check

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lana and Wynston have a moment alone.

Lana woke up early to find T7-01 whirring in the corner.

Agent = busy // T7 = processing offline

“I see,” said Lana. She slipped into her jacket and made for the bridge.

She stopped just shy. Wynston was in there, his back to her, his face to the main console.

He spoke in a low professional voice, his exquisite expressiveness modulated down to something calm but not quite monotone. It was a bad news voice. She listened.

“Ruth,” he said.

Lana went rigid.

“I would say this in person but we don’t seem to line up anymore, and besides, I thought you should take this at a time and place of your choosing.

“I’m concerned about you. You have been acting like you’re one hundred percent fine ever since the very day you killed the Emperor, and that means either you have an infinite capacity for trauma or you’ve learned how to lie to me. I…admit, I don’t like either possibility very much. Selfish, I suppose.

“You can tell me what happened to you out there. I will listen. I will believe you. I promise I will believe you, and you don’t have to defend any of it to me. But it’s extraordinarily difficult to watch you walk around without addressing it, not knowing when something will hit your wounds again. I can’t prevent what I can’t predict and I can’t predict what you choose to keep on your own and I know it’s your own choice, but I am and will be your friend. Whether you mistakenly imagine that has limits or not, just try me. I’ll be here.”

It was silent. She didn’t hear a keypress. She gave him a few moments, then slipped in. “Wynston?”

“Did you hear all that?” he said, turning. Her appearance didn’t seem to increase or decrease his controlled tension at all.

“I think so,” she said.

“Any disagreement?”

“No. Though, her behavior may be genuine. The sheer relief of removing the Emperor must have been a great help. She does seem to be doing well at work.”

“Perhaps. If you don’t need her to use the Force, or visit Zakuul, or talk to Vaylin. I just…don’t know why she won’t tell us. Maybe Theron….”

“Theron can’t emotional-sensitivity his way out of a flimsi bag. You know people, and you know her. You’re her best friend, Wynston.” Inconvenient, but immutable. In truth the Alliance core was a tetrahedron, and Lana had benefited from those links just as much as Wynston and Theron did. “If she’s really just dealing by not dealing, you’re the one in a position to help her.”

Wynston looked intent as he touched the part in his hair and smoothed a few strands. He did that when he was nervous. “Lana. After everything…you’re more important to me.”

“Nice to hear.” And he meant it. If she tried to break the Alliance again he would rip his heart in two and give her the larger half to keep. A lifetime’s treasure, but she liked him better intact. She half smiled. “Nice to hear, but a man’s only as good as his network.”

“Ouch, the spy talking.”

She closed the distance and rested her hands on his waist. “Tell me when I can distract you.”

Those red eyes widened. “Why?”

“Because once you’ve decided what to do there will be no point dwelling further on it today, and I should like to get on your schedule.”

He grinned wryly. “I’ll talk to her when she gives me the chance. Which…conspicuously hasn’t happened so far. If I’m forced to wait another week, I’ll drop the letter on her. We have to do this carefully.”

“Very well.” She leaned in and touched her nose to his ear. “Tell me when I can distract you.”

He caught her hand. “Why would I let you distract me from the only thing left on my mind?”

She smiled as he turned his face to kiss her palm. “Your knack for self-preservation is spectacular.”

“Praising you is self-preservation? Good, there’s a reason for it. Very clever on my part, bravo.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I think I have the secret of our relationship figured–”

Lana kissed him. His hand guided her arms around him and slid to warm her shoulders, her sides, her hips, as she leaned into him. His tongue was quick, playful, there one moment and gone every time she gave chase. He was wholly unlike anyone she would have invented for herself: short, lithe, blue, blind to the Force, untitled, completely civilized in all public situations.

Dexterous, truth be told. Attentive. Terrifyingly loyal, not to what served him personally, but to his interpretation of right. As if a mouse from Imperial Intelligence could be an authority on right.

But dismissing him for any detail of that sentence would have been a mistake.

When he slid a hand up her back it was to trace nonsense lines on her neck, running through her hair in what gave her implicit permission to run a hand up and muss his. In her entire experience of him, including the period when he was going after every non-Lana female on the planet, she had never known him to let anyone else do that. She did it.

This and other thoughts were filed for later. Wynston in the moment was not something to divide attention on.


	13. Empress: The Third Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth brings Vaylin a gift to keep her company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the fate of the Zakuulian royal family:
> 
> When Scythia tried to force Ruth to kill Arcann on Voss, Ruth only managed to down a protective Senya. (This did not satisfy Scythia. She retaliated by bombing Odessen.) Arcann came roaring back on Zakuul during Vaylin’s party, where Ruth tried to spare his life – and the Emperor asserted himself through her arms to kill him in full public view. When Ruth got the chance to imprison Vaylin on Nathema she thought she might have a way to redeem a family she had personally destroyed…

Vaylin was pacing. She had nothing better to do. Her sole companionship was a crippled console that gave her what might be accurate day and time. She had been down here for two weeks, and she was far, far too dangerous to be allowed external contact. That was satisfying, in a way.

She thought a lot about revenge.

She didn’t hear normal conversation at the guards’ station down the hall. She was in the deepest cell here, surreally well lit with blue tile walls and pale furniture, custom made to suppress connections to the Force. She had tested it end to end half a million times already. It was made with power, and that wretched horned demon had come down once to check it. She thought longingly of squishing his head like a grape.

Someone walked. Past the bitter Rattataki, past the sour Twi’lek. That left sweet or salty for Vaylin, she thought, and chuckled. Salt, and may they choke on it.

She sobered at once when she saw who it was. Lean in supple grey armor, severe with her hair slicked back toward her nape, the Outlander herself walked to the exact midpoint of Vaylin’s forcefield and turned. She folded her hands behind her back and stood as if waiting for the troop review.

“She arrives at last,” drawled Vaylin. Her jailer didn’t volunteer a reply. “What finally drove you down here, Outlander? Something you need that you couldn’t trust to your oh so loyal lieutenants?”

“Are you well?”

“I’m in a cage. How are you?”

The Outlander didn’t answer. Good. Her voice was strange anyway, not like the commanding tone Vaylin had heard in battle. It was soft and irritating.

“I talk to your friends,” said Vaylin. “They sneak down one at a time. Maybe they think you don’t know. They tell me things about your shiny new galaxy. There are fault lines you don’t even suspect. You stole the Eternal Empire without understanding it. You’ll lose it the same way.”

“Vaylin,” the Outlander said, strained.

Vaylin arched an eyebrow.

“Do you still hear him?”

Vaylin shoved her sleeves up, showing the dense web of tattoos up her arms. “Show me your marks, Outlander. I have every reminder here.”

Ruth touched her temples. “Look inside. It’s all there.”

“I can’t see,” Vaylin said distinctly, waving at the corners of her enclosure. “The Force here is like gruel spilled on the floor.” And she would not stoop to lick it, at least not where anyone could see…no matter how hard she tried in her hours alone. She brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “So you just came to talk about Father? How predictable.”

“He was on my mind for some time,” Ruth said dryly.

“Oh, clever,” spat Vaylin. “Now he still is, and you can’t crush his memory like you crushed his ghost. Maybe things will improve for you soon. But when the whispering stops, it doesn’t mean he’s gone. It only means he’s stopped to breathe.”

“That’s not true. He’s dead. He can’t hurt either of us anymore.”

“And you felt the need to come allll the way down here to tell me that.”

The Outlander bit into a different attack. “Vaylin…I want to see you healed.”

“Of what, exactly?”

“Of the atrocities that were done to you. Of being a test subject, an experiment…being abused. Your whole life. You deserve some peace.”

“Don’t Sith hate peace? Or is that another layer of hypocrisy?”

“I make exceptions sometimes. Vaylin, I didn’t want to kill your mother and I didn’t want to kill your brother. You’re the only person left to talk to, and I owe you for that.”

“How noble. How hard it must be,” crooned Vaylin. “How difficult to have the worship of the masses, the power of an Empress, the popularity of a hero…the attentions of a man you _love_. Yes, I feel for your plight, Outlander. My mother? My brother? I’m the last enemy you haven’t yet stabbed in the face, side, or _back_. Whatever are you going to do with yourself once you’ve erased me?”

“I brought you something,” she said.

Vaylin blinked. “You what?”

The Outlander produced a palm-sized handset consisting mostly of screen. “These belonged to your mother.” There was a small frame for meals at the corner of the cell forcefield; Vaylin mentally strained at it but the Force barrier held as the Outlander deactivated the physical forcefield, pushed the little handset through the frame, and restored the forcefield.

Vaylin hadn’t moved, hadn’t even physically looked at it. “Bedtime stories, Outlander?”

“Poems. Her own writing. She was good. She–”

Vaylin reached out and willed. Nothing happened. The shock of impotence stung her eyes and she had to snarl to avoid letting any other emotion slip. Her stomach knotted up anyway. Drawing now from training – she was a royal, not a common goon – she stalked over to the frame, swept the handset off its shelf, and hurled it across the cell. It impacted and crumpled.

Stupid thing. What words had she ever had from her mother but begging?

The Outlander looked pleasingly shaken. “Vaylin,” she said, staring at the wreckage. “I don’t have to be your friend. But I will be back. And I will not stop looking for a way to help you.”

“I will not stop ranking ways to make your death slow, Outlander. Maybe we can share when you return.” Vaylin turned away and waited for the drab Human to leave.

But she looked at the ruined handset after the Outlander was gone. It was smashed beyond repair. And that was exactly what she intended, she reminded herself. Mother’s self-indulgent poems had to be the lamest tribute anyone had ever offered her.

She didn’t care.

She didn’t.

The pieces didn’t resolve to words, no matter how long she stared.


	14. Alone; End of Book 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth does some housekeeping re: her former subletter.

Ruth left Vaylin in the Force cage.

What exactly had she expected? She had no solutions for Vaylin. She barely had the nerve to look her in the eye. A woman near her age, near her power level, near her role over an Empire, probably her closest peer in the galaxy…very near, yet an enemy. It called into question the very definition of victory.

She would have to think of something.

And let the other visitors, whoever that might be, continue. Tebbith was doubtless one, before he’d left for Zakuul. Wynston seemed to recognize Vaylin’s menace, Larr Gith was off planet, Lana had absolutely no use for the woman, and Vette and Calline weren’t getting paid to visit, so maybe Vaylin was lying about there being more.

She walked past Saresh, past Fade, past the guard station…then up toward Ephel’s surface. She took the smooth-hewn stone stairs into the darkness. She reached a landing. There was no sound from above, no sound from below.

She was alone.

Ruth stopped. She had walked downstairs with a guard going on duty, but now walked up by herself. No enemies, no friends, no supporters, not even an assassin.

No Emperor.

Alone. Her knees gave way. She scrambled back against the wall, and her vision in the monotonous darkness blurred. Alone. She coughed out and sobbed in. Alone.

No lover, child, ally, minion, adviser, employee, rival, soldier, cleaner, or spy. If she had any sense, if she had any strength, she would crawl back upstairs and find them again, her supporters, her loyalists, maybe somewhere her friends. Instead she was down here, weak-kneed. Alone.

Tears stung and then slid from her eyes. Nobody watching. Nobody listening. Nobody offering her another taste of power, just enough…just enough to make her usable later. Nobody driving her on. Inside and out, alone.

She drew her knees up to under her chin and hugged her shins. And cried. Her master all her adult life had finally, finally left her, just like she wanted, and now there was nobody. She let her voice into her sobs and it echoed above and below. Alone, and she might curl up and die except she was breathing too hard to manage the physical control.

Some time later something else happened. Someone darted out of the gloom from above. “Mom. Mom? Mom!”

Ruth tried to stop rocking and only managed to sob harder. “Rylon,” she said hoarsely, wishing to every star that she hadn’t summoned him using grief alone. “It’s okay.”

“What happened?”

It ripped through her lungs, squeezed her throat, bruised her eyes shut. “It’s okay,” she repeated. That was the entire point. She was alive. She was safe. He was safe. Everything had worked out for the best. Everything was okay. Her heated tears were starting to drip from her jaw and she couldn’t move, not even to comfort her son.

“You’re scaring me,” Rylon said in a small voice.

“I’m s-sorry, I–”

His hand came down on her shoulder. His other hand brought out his holo. “I can call Theron,” he whispered. Ruth, rather than contribute, sobbed again, and brought a hand up to cover his.

It was text, apparently, because Rylon just pocketed his holo after. He stood there staring. “Mom, please,” he said at last. “Stop.”

“I’m trying,” she rasped. This was not what she was supposed to tell her son. Everything was good now. Shouldn’t she just be grateful, instead of weeping until she saw spots? “It’s okay. You’re safe, we’re safe.”

“Was it somebody downstairs? Was it Fade? Or…” he dropped to a whisper…“Ms. Ekkage?”

She couldn’t even laugh at his chosen title. Ekkage was the public name for the prisoner in the deepest cell. An old and reviled name: it would suffice to explain the security.

Ruth wiped her tears and sniffed. “It was nobody, Rylon. I just…stopped to think for a minute.”

“About what?”

What to tell him? “How much it hurt,” she said honestly.

“Well, don’t,” he said sharply. “Don’t don’t don’t don’t _don’t_.” He paused as if gauging her response, which was pathetic. He withdrew his hand and started for the stairs up.

“Don’t leave me,” she wailed. She couldn’t face the vacancy of her head yet. Not like this.

Rylon stopped at the first stair. Someone was jumping down toward them two at a time. Theron clattered into view and slowed at Rylon’s side. “Hey,” he said, and grabbed Rylon’s elbows. “Hang on, okay?” He turned to Ruth.

She shoved the back of her hand across her mouth to stifle a sob. “Theron, please,” she managed.

He knelt beside her and took her hand. “No, no, no,” he said, squeezing. “What happened?”

“I was alone,” she said. Tears kept running. “I wasn’t alone for eight years, and then, I was coming upstairs, and nobody was with me, and I was _alone_.”

“Sh. It’s okay. You’re okay. You survived, you’re here and he’s not. That’s a good thing.”

“Make her stop,” mumbled Rylon from a safe distance.

“It hurt,” said Ruth. “The Emperor. It hurt so much and I had to be so strong it didn’t matter. It hurt, so much, and all I could do was try to save everybody else, because nobody knew how to save me. And it hurt, Theron. It hurt.”

“I know. Oh, I know.” He pulled her into his arms and turned her so her cheek was on his chest and she could see up to his chin. “Ruth,” he whispered. “You made it. You're here. With me. Just with me and your son. Please don't cry.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. It was jagged when she let it out again. She had said it. Said the hard thing, the thing that surely everyone who knew her already knew but that she had denied to the galaxy’s face for so long. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m being very silly.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not.”

She buried her face in his shirt. It was thin and he was warm. The shadows seemed less heavy now.

“Rylon,” said Theron. “C’mere.”

The next sound Ruth heard was Rylon running up the stairs. Honestly, she didn’t blame him. It wasn't his job to protect her. It wasn’t anybody’s job to protect her, but least of all her child.

“Ruth,” murmured Theron. “Shh. It’s all right.”

“I guess that’s it,” she said, stiff with drying tears. “When I ran away I took him with me. And when I came home I was surrounded by a crowd. I haven’t had to face the inside of my head in…years. D-does that stop being awful?”

“That really depends on who you ask,” he said, and kissed her hair. “No Emperor is a definite upgrade.”

He was right, and the storm was starting to fade. She heaved one breath and pushed away. She stood and dusted herself off. “We should go,” she said, and was proud to say it clearly.

“Let’s go home,” he said, standing. “You can take some time off.”

So everybody said, but... “No, I can’t. They need the Outlander.”

“You don't have to perform for them yet. All of us, we don’t mind.”

“But I do. I got the embarrassing part out of the way, now there’s nothing left but to go on.” And that part was scary, but it also whispered of opportunity. “When my master sought my death, when my husband tried to shoot me, when that animal Draahg murdered my father–those days, the last time I hurt this much, when all that happened, I was tough enough. I was tough enough for everyone to see.”

His jaw tightened. “You were the Wrath.”

“Better adjusted this time. Because this time I have my friends, and you. Theron…no one can know how deep this went. I’m burying that here. Going forward, something tells me I’ll know when I need to rest. And I’m not there yet. I’d honestly like to be with you and with our friends, doing something.”

“Say the word and we go home and I guard the door against everyone.”

It was kind, but wrong. “Not yet.” She spread her fingers on his chest and followed with her body, her nose against his neck, and he hugged her tight. “I needed to cry,” she said. “But I think I can survive being alone next time.”

“You never have to. Please, tell me you understand that.”

She leaned back. She looked at him, his tensed-line mouth, his very recent shave, his slightly undone hair, his tawny eyes most of all. Through the worst of the demon in her mind, this man had been at her side, for no reason other than that he had poor judgment and a way of easing through her defenses. Kind of like now.

She sucked in a breath and held it until she was sure his kindness wouldn't get her to cry again. It took a few seconds. “I do,” she said gratefully. “I’ll be okay. We will.”

His mouth relaxed a little. “Are you sure?”

She breathed in, and he breathed in, and they were both pretty stable. This next word was how she defined the entirety of her followup. So she let herself smile the way he always made her smile when she said, “Yes.”

 

_~~end of KotDA Book 6~~_


	15. Start of Book 7; Caf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indo Zal tries to make things right with Larr Gith.

Larr Gith avoided Indo Zal in the halls of power. Wherever he went in the convention center that had become the palpitating heart of the new government, she had an excuse to walk the other way, her golden hair bobbing high up in the crowd, and damned but he could feel the hip swing of every stride.

Even in the deliberation chambers, Larr Gith was perfectly capable of maintaining wall to wall monologuing until he left the room. He rapidly came to realize that if he wanted this nation to come into its own it would have to do it while he stepped outside. It was like being shut out from the sun, all day, every day. Losing his nation’s history was bad too.

He managed secondary meetings. He applied his keen knowledge of Zakuul’s sub-imperial structure to recommend how best to integrate more democratic processes. People listened to him. They called him a hero.

At least some people thought so.

There were four places to eat within the convention center, and the one with the best caf was the one Larr Gith frequented in the mornings. One morning he combed his updo with extra care, waited for the first few minutes, then hurled himself forward as Larr Gith reached one of the baristas, a listless-looking Twi’lek labeled Ros.

“Allow me,” he said, and started reciting what Larr Gith had ordered the day before to a surprisingly tolerant barista, possibly this very one. “Medium half caf in a large cup, red foam mocha dollop with a…” this went on for a while, perfect down to the intonation, because if there was one thing he could do well it was perform… “and three ice cubes, put in after the first pump of syrup but before everything else. Please.”

The barista stared at him, slack-jawed.

“It’s okay, Rosy,” said Larr Gith, and leaned across, and lifted the barista’s chin back up with one slender finger. “You can get me the usual.”

Indo Zal felt the moment getting away from him. “That’s not the usual?”

Larr Gith rolled her eyes without once looking at him. “No, it’s what I ordered yesterday to see how Rosy would react, and then I tipped her about a billion credits when she tried. Did you have an actual order, or are you just here to embarrass me?”

“C-caf,” he stammered. “Black.” It was all the vocabulary he had left in his head. He didn’t have the presence to remember what Larr Gith actually ordered before she cast him a withering look, thumb-brushed “Rosy”’s chin, and sashayed away.


	16. The Fate of the Favored

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth shares her plan for the imprisoned Vaylin with her inner circle.

“It’s two in the morning here,” said Larr Gith over the holo.

“Hello,” said Tebbith next to her.

“We need to get this done,” said Ruth in the Ephel conference room. Wynston, Lana, and Theron’s eyes were on her locally. “Thank you for coming. We need to figure out something for Vaylin. I never intended to put her in solitary confinement indefinitely.”

“Madam Outlander, is there a reason Koth isn’t on this call?” Tebbith said mildly.

“Yes,” said Ruth. “Next. She’s hurting, she’s furious, she’s accustomed to power…and she is powerful. We interrupted her Nathema ritual, but not in time to keep her shackles on. Vaylin is our most dangerous…”

“Asset?” Wynston suggested in a noncommittal tone.

“Convict,” said Ruth. “Given the chance she’ll strangle us all, call in an air strike, and destroy everything we’ve built here.”

“Great,” said Theron. “You have a plan, right?”

“I do,” said Ruth. “I don’t know the details yet. Before Arcann died, Senya brought him to Voss. For a ritual. That was meant to…”

“Rewrite him?” said Wynston.

“Soothe his anger,” said Ruth. “To bring about a man with his memories, his abilities…but not his rage.”

“Impossible,” said Wynston. “Hate is part of your identity if you were raised to the Dark Side of the Force.”

“It’s served you in the past,” Lana said stiffly.

He looked her in the eye. “And I wouldn’t try to take it from you, not for every treasure in this galaxy.”

“I support the Outlander’s ideas,” said Tebbith. “Healing must be possible. I fear that the Voss technique requires the sapping of life energy from a healthy donor, but there are less strenuous and more…complete…rituals. And after the destruction of the war, can there be any pursuit more noble than restoring what was broken along the way?”

Ruth cast a look around. “Thank you, Tebbith.”

“The Jedi are not unaccustomed to taking extreme measures to save someone,” he added. “There are rituals, ways to give someone a wholly new life.”

“To erase them,” said Wynston.

Tebbith folded his hands over an invisible desk he must have been at. “How does one separate the woman from the Empress? Is it such a sin to sweep both away in order to enable new growth?”

“I’m not in the business of sins, Jedi. Only people. And you’re talking about destroying one.”

“One who hardly deserves our care,” said Lana. “Ruth, be honest. You’re in this because you feel guilty about having killed her family. In times of wars, how many families have we disrupted? We let go of counting them because meditating on it would drive us insane. Let her go.”

“I can’t,” said Ruth. “Not if there’s any other way. People…I was almost her. She was almost me. Her mother was my friend. This is personal, but I do believe that if she’s well, it’ll benefit more than my conscience.”

“Will it, now?” said Larr Gith. “Are you talking about letting her out of her cell? Ever? We can barely keep her under control when we’re together at full power. Do we all join up to watch in case of relapse every time she steps out?”

“I don’t know,” said Ruth. “For her crimes she’s earned life in prison at best. Maybe she’ll understand that. She doesn’t now.”

Larr Gith snorted. “All the redemption and none of the perks. You drive a shitty bargain, Ruth.”

“A person can change,” said Tebbith. “With help. Given time, given compassion, given a place to think and a knowledge of where their next meal is coming from. She will understand, in time.”

“You really want this,” said Larr Gith.

“Yes,” said Tebbith.

“You know these Jedi techniques,” accused Wynston.

“I haven’t studied them myself, but the Council can provide. I’m sure they will once I explain it.”

“Will she remember?” said Wynston. “Will she understand what she was? Will she experience the same instincts? Who are you writing into her shell? Do you even know?”

“Wynston,” said Ruth, “I was hoping you could tell me.”

The room went silent.

Ruth pressed on. “You’ve had dealings with Imperial Intelligence. You know things, you’ve seen people, pressured them. With techniques of some kind. If anyone knows how to make a behavioral adjustment without destroying someone, it’s you.”

“‘Behavioral adjustment’?” he said. “I’m not available.” Dead cold, each letter distinct. His half-lidded stare gave nothing away. “I can keep the physical aspects of her cell secure. That’s all the use I can be to you.”

“Then I have to turn to the Jedi,” said Ruth.

“Understood,” he said, as coldly as before. “Was there something else? I should tell her what lies in store.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I can,” said Tebbith’s holo image. “I can take some time from Zakuul.”

“No need,” said Wynston. “I’ll handle it. Do I get to tell her who she’s going to be?”

“I…” Ruth cleared her throat and fidgeted in spite of herself. Why was he being so difficult about this? “I don’t know yet.”

“Acknowledged. Give it some thought. She’ll have it for the rest of her life…whether or not you're present to approve.” And he walked out, his gait balanced and smooth, frost forming and dissipating in his wake.

“So,” said Larr Gith. “That went well.”

“Tell me how I can assist,” said Tebbith.

“Research,” said Ruth. “Tell me what he wanted to know about what she’ll become.”

“Of course.”

“Ruth,” said Lana, “I’m not making this another ultimatum. But I want you to be very sure about what you’re doing.”

“I didn’t come out of the Emperor’s shadow with a lot of reference points,” said Ruth. “But what I did to her is something I have to face.”

Lana nodded stiffly. “Very well. To be frank, any punishment for her would fail to satisfy if she didn’t experience remorse on some level. I’ll help.”

“Thank you. Really.”

She smiled wryly. “I know a little about second chances.”

“And for that I trust you.”

And with that, the meeting broke up. Wynston was nowhere to be found.


	17. Is A Year Enough Time?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth and Theron discover a quirk of their adopted planet. It's nice.

“Do you think Wynston is going to be okay?” said Ruth.

Theron scoffed uncomfortably. “You’re his best friend. Nothing I can guess would answer that better.”

“I’ve never seen him that way before. He gets professional, I know, when people do horrible things where he can see. But…he’s never frightened me before.”

“Do you know why he hates this healing thing so much?”

She looked unhappy and thoughtful. “I…can guess. I just didn’t realize how strongly he felt.”

“Ruth. Come here.”

Ruth’s hands fell. She was in a lumpy grey sweater and fitted black pants, her heeled boots the only suggestion of conscious fashion. Since coming out from the Wrath’s mask she had never needed her couture to speak for her. She walked up to him like the will of the universe and twined her arms around his neck. “I’m here,” she whispered.

He slid an arm around her waist and started for the open bedroom. “Listen,” he said. “It’s raining out there. Hard.”

Ephel was a rugged world; its few green patches were far from the temple they had converted to a home. Their bedroom window was sealed against the dust of the gorge; Theron just looked at the streaming grey beyond.

“Does it mean anything?” said Ruth.

“Well, it means we’re getting up early tomorrow, for one thing.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

“Are we back into cryptic-plans territory?”

He sucked in a breath. “Sorry,” he said. “Listen, I promise you’ll like it. Five-thirty. If you wake up and hate it I’ll let you get right back to sleep.”

“I’ll hold you to that, dearest.”

He grinned. “I know.”

*

Theron was true to his word; the chrono read 0533 when he shook her awake. “Wear something halfway dust-resistant,” he whispered. Then he was gone.

The room was cool. The rain had stopped. The curiosity was burning. Ruth got up and dressed.

Theron took her hand in the empty hallways, up through the living district and toward the landings behind the temple. He took a speeder and Ruth climbed up behind him.

Theron drove like someone who drives very badly, mostly, she suspected, to show off how it never actually went wrong. He only had the silver-green dawn sky to witness him as he revved her around the temple and down the gorge. It was rough terrain, not enough to wreck a speeder but enough to make one think very carefully about agreeing to ride down it for miles and miles.

And miles.

The river that passed through the Force enclave at the temple ran high and spiritedly to one side as they went. Theron crossed it at a shallows and started up into the crumbling gorge wall.

“I trust you,” she called dubiously into his ear.

He laughed. “Keep doing that.” He cut back steeply to edge onto another angled stone. And forward, and turn, and another. The river was falling away behind; they were climbing up a haphazardly folded brown ridge, liberally interpreting the sediment lines as they went.

Theron stopped.

“Hm?” said Ruth.

“Almost there,” he said.

“Um…almost?”

“I want you focused.”

“I’m focused. What’s the mystery?”

He turned the speeder off and pointed up at a final stone wall. “Think you can get us up there?”

No sooner said than done. Ruth pushed Theron up, vaulted up after him, bumped him, wobbled, laughed…and stopped.

Open air was in front of them. And below, a valley, flat into the dusty haze of distance.

The valley was purple.

Royal purple, rich purple, purple as smooth and unbounded as the green-dawn sky above. “What happened?” she breathed.

Theron was there, as was right. “Happens every year or so. Only after a rainfall. Right after a rainfall. They tell me there’s a red one further west of here.”

“That’s too much beauty for one day. _Look_ at this.”

They picked their way down together. Up close the flowers were hosts of wind-riffled bells springing from an infinite web of cracks across the valley's crust. Not a branch in sight, nor a patch of bare ground: what had hastened to greet the day was pure color.

She sat, watching the purple layer blur toward the horizon. A wind was leaning across the long landscape. “How long?” she said.

“Supposedly more than one kind of flower will come out, given time. A few weeks, maybe.”

“I didn’t know when we picked this place.”

“Lana didn’t know when she picked this place. Nice that the surprise factor is a positive one for once.”

“Sit with me.”

He did.

“You know,” he said, “I came here to see something beautiful light up. And she thinks I’m talking about the flowers.”

She smiled. “Did you come up with that on the way here?”

“I drove slower than usual to make sure I got it.”

“I could tell.”

“Can we talk about something? While we’re out here.”

She slid her hand along the dusty valley floor to sneak under his. “Yes.”

“You know, you just make…small…words…work. I, uh. This was about…we got engaged while things were a little crazy.”

She met his eyes. He looked a little anxious. The wind was pulling at his collar.

“We had the day off,” she said. “Rather like now. It was nice.”

“It was very nice. We put off the details due to the galaxy going insane.”

“I know. It doesn’t mean–”

“That we don’t think about it,” he agreed. “So we could do this one of two ways.”

“We can do it this week...”

“Or after we’ve given things time to settle down.” Theron cleared his throat.  “This week is a little spontaneous,” he crackled.

“I agree,” she said gently. “Do you want to just pick a time?”

“A year. Give us a year to plan, to choose things…”

“To have something to look forward to.”

He nodded. “It’ll be springtime on Rishi, in the northern hemisphere. Where we did all our adventuring.”

“I didn’t adventure,” she said reasonably. “That was Scythia and Larr Gith. I just showed up on the Imperial flagship opposite the Republic and yelled a lot.”

“True, but you were yelling about how untrustworthy I was over the northern hemisphere. I think spring will work.”

“Anything we should line up first?”

He smiled. “You want to book every stunt fighter troupe in the sector to fly over the fireworks, we can do that. You want to rush to get laundry done the day before so you’ll have something clean when we walk over to the registrar, we can do that instead.”

“What do you want?”

“Something in my back pocket. For us. It doesn’t have to be much. A date will last me.”

“Today.” Wait, that wasn’t exactly correct. “Only a year from now.”

“Done.”

She smiled, and the breath of the wind over the purple was sweet. “Don’t take any crazy risks.” (Again.)

He grinned back. “Don’t try to take on the galaxy by yourself.” (Again.)

“Be there to watch my back.”

“Anything it takes.”

She jerked her chin toward the purple splendor. “Do we have to go right away?”

He looked up. He looked around. He looked across, at the haze where the color finally surrendered. It was a long way away. “Not yet,” he said in that voice she loved. “Not yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look up Atacama desert bloom. It's crazy.


	18. Empress: The Fourth Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wynston breaks the news to Vaylin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's this, and one reaction shot to this, then we zoom out to see what the rest of the Alliance is doing. After all, peace has broken out, and lines are getting redrawn...

Wynston’s work relied on building bridges. The commonality of being an Imperial, an alien, a spy, a pilot, a glib Huttball fan…there was always something to build a link with anyone he met.

But the woman in the basement had something he’d never seen anyone else survive before. And her time was running out.

Vaylin was pacing the length of the red forcefield enclosure set into the a bright-tiled cell of Ephel’s underside when Wynston came down the narrow staircase and turned off the cameras. She stopped, folded her arms over her chest, and glared. “There you are,” she growled.

He checked the forcefield’s frame. “Here I am.”

“I didn’t miss you.”

“No, I imagine not.” He wasn’t there to be a friend. She would hate him even more if he tried to be a friend.

“What do you want?”

This woman was never going to be kind. She was never going to be patient. She was never going to be civil. But her time was running out, and at least this conversation was real.

“To talk to you,” he said dryly. “I should think that’s obvious.”

“Have you not decided to ‘heal’ me yet?”

“There’s still debate,” he said. “At the crux of it, the Outlander doesn’t want to kill Senya’s daughter.”

“Mother isn’t here to make a difference. She never was.” Vaylin snarled and stalked over to her armchair. Her body language, and she was an extremely expressive person, was all closed: legs crossed, arms still folded over, chin tucked down. Her hair, exhaustively brushed, fell over half her face.

“Jedi healing,” he said. “It sounds extreme. They don’t have the technique here, so you have some time. Days, most likely.”

“Another choke collar?”

“More of a reset. I can’t tell you what it feels like.” And that was the end of what he could affect. “I’ve mentioned they gave me a keyword once,” he said.

She favored him with a glance. “Father?”

“No. Scientists affiliated with the Empire, my employer at the time.”

“Hmph.”

“Yours must have been a Force ritual.”

“With genius like yours, I’m hardly even embarrassed you defeated me.”

“Mine was chemical. They installed a leash in my brain.”

“There was much less of you to restrain,” she said.

“Maybe. Regardless, I did escape. And you know the strangest part?” Here it was, things he had never said, thoughts he had never permitted. “I have absolutely no idea whether I’m the man now that I was before that moment.” The outrage of it had faded, but people liked wondering about this kind of thing. Especially people who had nothing to do but think all day and night. “My memories all feel like mine. My experience of it is continuous and complete. I’m certainly living a full enough life. But I don’t know, I can’t ever know, whether I’m the same person. It’s really prime sleepless-night material.”

“ _Ugh_.” Vaylin convulsed for a fraction of a second. Then she settled: slouched forward in her chair, elbow on its arm, chin on her hand, eyes half-lidded and cast in the general direction of the tile wall beside her. She looked supremely bored. “The only reason I’m not sleeping at night is that you keep coming and bothering me.”

Who was she under the dictator? And who was she going to be by the time they got through with her brain? Something died when you did that. Everyone knew it. Would her profusion of scars remain? Or were those smoothed away in the new incarnation? What had he lost when he pulsed the chemical pathways in his brain for that final time? But enough pushing.

Her free hand tapped fingertips on the armchair. “You’re still he-ere.”

“I wondered whether there’s anything you want to say while you can still say it.”

She bared her teeth. “No. You’re not worthy to listen. You just come downstairs to prod the chained rancor because I am the greatest power you will ever know. You are nothing! You are filth!” She jumped to her feet wild-eyed, rushed toward him so viciously that he fell a step back. “I will crack your idiot friends’ bones and make you eat the marrow! You will be the last to die and I will make you beg!” She raised a fist and slammed the forcefield. Then her other fist. An acrid smell rose. “You are vermin and if you sniff around my boots much longer I will  _teach_  you your errors!”

This was her true face and this her true voice. He would be dead if she weren’t caged. She might go on to obliterate a world just to make herself feel better. He knew why his compatriots wanted the change, but he also keenly knew that the first people who had violated her were dead.

“Nevertheless,” he said. “I am here.”

She made a strange strangled exhalation. “I don’t want your pity,” she said throatily.

He faced her down. His reinvention hadn’t been of his own volition. Neither would hers be. But that was the story of upstart ability, the kind too dangerous to let loose. He could witness her last days before the Jedi healing altered her. It seemed like the kind of courtesy he would have liked to receive. But if he ever wondered why the change was necessary, he could remember the look on her face when he had the temerity to exist in her presence. Pity? “Believe me, Vaylin. You’re not getting it.”


	19. When You Share a Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lana and Wynston discuss what they know so far post-Vaylin.

Lana stood from the couch and set the datapad aside when Wynston came in. “Welcome back,” she said. “How are you holding up?”

“Tolerably,” he said levelly. “How are you?”

She took a deep breath. He looked so totally ordinary. Aware, but relaxed. Not a hint of what she’d just seen. “Wondering whether I should be jealous. You made quite the confession there.”

Wynston cocked an eyebrow, but he wasn’t stupid. “You have another camera on that cell.”

Lana smiled, not quite apologetically. “I would hardly be doing my job if I gave all our toys to all our staff.”

The anger and pain that had lodged in odd corners of his manner smoothed away, leaving a crooked smile. “I love you,” he breathed.

“No doubt. Aren’t you a little self-conscious about that conversation?”

“No. I assumed it was secret, and when you share a secret…”

She knew the rest of the Imperial Intelligence proverb. “You’re sharing it with Us.”

He nodded. “Your analysis?” he said crisply.

“You practically stripped in front of her.”

“It wasn’t true.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“I made the details up. When have I ever been afflicted with that level of introspection?”

“Would I know? Be careful. She’s trying to play you.”

His attention was keen, and it made her feel better. He was working with her. The way he always should. “How so?”

“She’s keeping you talking.”

“I need her to experience social contact and she won’t hold up half a conversation. Unless you count the insults.”

“You’re trying to prove you’re alike. I’m worried that you’ve convinced yourself. She knows you’re not.”

“There is no one like her. I understand that.”

That specific phrasing didn't help. “Wynston, I'm asking you. Don’t let her in.”

Strangely, he skipped to looking her over, to his sharp red regard tracing her out and settling back on her eyes. “She will never know me the way you do.”

“The way you told her things you’ve never said to me?”

“You know that I was subjected to the Castellan restraints, and that I broke out. If you want a dramatic interpretation, I can provide, but I don’t see why it would interest you. Nothing past the bare facts is real.”

“But it is. It happened to you, Wynston, and you did feel something about it.”

“I stayed too drunk to form an opinion. That, by the way, is a fact I’ll tell you that I’ll never tell her. My experience is just a tool. That's all I feel about it, having survived it once. Please, Lana, I wasn't giving her anything that's meaningful to me. You’re the one I come home to.” He extended one hand, palm up.

And she took it. “You’re right,” she said, running a thumb around his knuckles. He was wiry and real, life-sized, no more and no less. “I just get reminded, from time to time, that you are drawn to powerful women.”

He accepted it in proper seriousness. “Not often.” He opened a hand to one side. “One enemy, darker than practical.” His other hand on the other. “One friend, brighter than necessary.” He joined palm to palm and pointed toward her. “One goddess of dusk and dawn. My favorite hours. It isn’t complicated.”

“You are complicated, Wynston. I think I would love you less if you weren’t.”

“And am I satisfactory?” He was calm. He was genuinely asking.

“Well,” said Lana. “You’re not filth, nor vermin.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

“I _will_ teach you your errors. Slowly, in detail, over extended time, and in searing candor.”

“Consider me your student. Devoted. You have my word.”

Stars, his voice was music, never more than when he was happy with her. “I know what your word is worth.” All he did was stop breathing, waiting for the judgment. She stepped in and drew a fingernail down his cheek, along his jaw, under his chin, and gave mercy with an affectionate smile. “In the right time. In the right place. It's everything.”

He had the sense to kiss her. The interview was over, and she had won.


	20. Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vette and Hylo Visz, alternate-channel procurers extraordinaires, have a word about past and future.

The cluttered hallways fell silent when Vette walked through.

She had Bowdaar at one shoulder and Calline at the other. Between the two of them they were probably three times her mass, and they were both experts at looming. The triad walked onto Port Nowhere like they owned the place, which at some point in Vette’s eleven years of post-Wrath independent wheeling and dealing might have been true.

  
“Zykken,” she said cordially, nodding to a slim man in boxy pirate regalia. “Vaalhar,” to a blond Wookiee, “looking good.” Acknowledgments came back, usually a little shy. Vette the Voidwolf was a household name to the galactic underworld.

Now and again someone would look at Calline and start whispering furiously at someone else. To Mandalorians and the top-tier bounty hunters of the galaxy, Calline’s head-to-toe battle-pitted electrum armor was well known, too.

Vette passed through the crowded cantina to a back room. “Hexer, sabacc.” The droid piped cheerfully and got moving. It was always good to warm the place up. Let people realize she was there. Let them sort out what they wanted to say. It made the individual interviews after a lot more productive. Besides, she liked practicing her sabacc face. It was smug.

The droid tapped a few console buttons. Players showed up in her private lounge, just spacers who wanted the chance to put one over on the Voidwolf. Calline and Bowdaar stayed at the door. Vette knew they could hear the hangers-on outside. Calline said she liked getting that kind of chatter, and it didn’t happen when Calline herself was the most intriguing person in the room.

Vette got the distinct impression that Calline preferred standing in the second row.

She played until she’d won the month’s fuel money, then dismissed the table. Honestly she could go for more, but why get greedy? It was all just prologue to the first conversation.

With the grinning Mirialan spacer called Hylo Visz.

“You sure you don’t want to take this up with Ruth?” said Vette.

“Her legendarily responsive answering service? No, thanks. Business needs to flow, Vette, and the Outlander hasn’t been opening any channels lately.”

“So this is about the Alliance.”

Hylo Visz smiled. “Doesn’t have to be. I’m not married to the Outlander.”

“Flirt at least, or this is going to be one real short conversation.” There was no link left between Vette and her last owner ever, except that there really, really was one.

Visz put up her hands defensively. “Completely open to flirting. But it’s a chaotic market. Business is flocking to Zakuul. Everyone’s trying to get a sweeter deal out of the Eternal Empire than they could squeeze out of the old territories.”

“So you’re in on that stampede?”

“And give up on the six hundred contracts that just got defaulted on for more fashionable pursuits? Not likely. I didn’t get to this point in my career by paddling toward what’s popular.”

“Sounds good. I think we can do a little column A, column B matching here. Play it right, the Alliance will have stronger Imperial and Republic bonds tomorrow than it ever has before. Like one big occasionally assassination-happy family.”

“If I can get the Outlander to do anything,” said Visz.

“I know she's missed some cues lately.” Sad, but Ruth had a lot on her plate and most of it had changed since the Emperor’s destruction. She was getting better, day by day. And until then... “Get Wynston's time if you need her to pay attention.”

Hylo smirked. “Somebody's going to assume that's a booty call.”

“Hazards of knowing Wynston.” Had he tried? Oh, yes, he had, a long time ago. “One other tip. Ruth's visiting Coruscant soon. Real live state visit. And scuttlebutt has it she’s taking Calline.”

“ _Your_ Calline?” Hylo tilted her head toward the door. “The Calline who retired Chancellor Janarus?”

“Yep. Plug that into your market predictors. And consider short selling that morning.”

Visz looked delighted. “Sister, will do.” She leaned back and eyed Vette appraisingly. “You and the Outlander seem closer than I would expect for a professional outlaw and the professional law. How did you meet her?”

Vette stared.

Vette threw back her head.

Vette laughed, loudly.

“I met her on Korriban,” she managed. “She was an apprentice and I was a slave, busted for raiding Sith tombs. She hated being there and I hated being collar-shocked fourteen hours a day, so we teamed up. The rest is slightly complicated history.”

“Funny, I have trouble imagining her being an apprentice. Or you a slave.”

“I was a really bad slave,” said Vette. “Wouldn’t wear the uniform. Stole unsanctioned food. I was a menace, I don’t know why they didn’t just shoot me…but nobody actually assigned the jailer lethal weapons, either a major oversight or a really sick choice on someone’s part, and then I hitched that ride out of there. Lucky, I guess.”

“So how did you get from off-Korriban to here?”

“Well, Ruth got promoted to Wrath, and I took my severance package and got my own ship. Started running guns to war zones. That worked brilliantly for eight weeks before somebody stole my ship.”

Hylo Visz guffawed and caught herself. “Somebody stole the Voidwolf’s ship?”

“Embarrassing, right? I think that guy’s still mopping floors on Hoth. I send him Life Day cards. Two or three times a year, I don’t think they give him network access to look up what day it is. I started dating them back in time, too. I think my last card was from 16 ATC.”

“Vette, it’s the year 23.”

“And Prisoner #1138 on Hoth Maintenance Unit 6 might possibly be aware of that! I just try to let him know he’s not forgotten.”

“You are a cold customer.”

“Not as cold as him. I just like to occasionally get the last laugh.”

Bowdaar and Calline relaxed as Vette strolled out. The cantina was still crowded, though it quieted a moment when Vette came in view.

She looked to either side. “Anything juicy?”

“Those Rodians think she’s hot,” volunteered Bowdaar, jerking a thumb toward a nearby table.

Calline tossed an armored kick his way. “ _Chu’ot,”_ she growled. “Whole different vibe.”

“Hot,” said Bowdaar. “I can tell. Wookiee hearing.”

“Can we go?” grumbled Calline.

“We’ve gotta make sure Ruth hasn’t given away the homeworld,” said Vette. “Let’s hit the hyperlanes.”


	21. Interlude: Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No big plot. Jorgan gets the details from Ruth.

Jorgan was on the elevator when Ruth stepped in. “Hello,” she said.

“Commander.” He nodded. The door closed. They stood together.

“Do we have an awkward conversation topic for this ride?” she said lightly.

“Heh. No, ma’am.” He looked straight ahead. “I got the official account of what happened.”

“Messy, I know.”

“You killed the Emperor years ago. Everyone who believes you knows it. But…stop me if I’m out of line…in ops, sometimes you talked like he was alive.”

The lift hummed.

Jorgan had been a loyal soldier for over a year. He had even helped apprehend his old commanding officer when that commanding officer tried to assassinate Ruth…twice. And she liked his direct manner. If any Republic figure deserved the truth, it was him.

“Colonel,” she said. “In confidence. A sliver of his mind hid inside mine in the moment of his death. He rode with me. Talking, half the time. I didn't go to Zakuul to take the throne. I went to blot out everything that remained of him.”

He let out a slow breath. “This whole time...? I had no idea.”

His gaze on her, calculating, wondering, stung. “The orders I gave you were all me,” she said. “He had no input.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you read minds, Commander?”

“No. But I know what my first question would be if I heard about this.” She was still leaking credibility. “I realize I'm not quite the woman you thought I was.”

“You're not a woman.” The impact of the words was instantly overruled by the impact of his panic. “I mean– blast. I'm not saying– I, I don't think of you that way.”

She was okay with that. “And you follow me anyway?” What an un-cynical thought. She liked it.

“You saw us through. Man, woman, or nerf, you did it.” He cleared his throat loudly. “This is my stop.”

His discomfort would be upsetting if it weren’t so, she had to admit, funny. She forced a straight face. “Forget my choice of words, Colonel. Take care.”

“Ma’am.” He saluted and marched out, a little faster than strictly necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prior awkward elevator scene was back in Book 2: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14203644/chapters/33410901 , search "Getting around Odessen".


	22. Climbing in Zakuul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indo Zal and Tebbith consider the rising powers of Zakuul.

A bipartite Senate and a Consul. What a short summary of such a long deliberative process.

Tebbith had worked for a month to advance democracy past the ‘nice notion’ phase in over a month of trying. The movement for absolutism was startlingly powerful. Indo Zal, Larr Gith, and Tebbith led the pressure against a monarch of any sort. It was pointedly mentioned that neither Tebbith nor Larr Gith had gotten to where they were today via election.

Koth had emerged as a powerful speaker. As a commander who had bucked Arcann’s orders he was notorious, and those who called him traitor did so on the outskirts where no one could smell the imperial loyalism. He inspired a lot of people. When he talked about elections, people listened.

And he was in the running. Koth Vortena, seeking to become the Consul of an interplanetary nation. Tebbith was achingly aware of the stain of Alliance influence the “Jedi hanger-on” carried with him, but Koth never pushed him away, never hid him from view. He seemed content to stand or fall on their joint merits – a decision that might cost him dearly, Tebbith feared. But Tebbith would have to be considerably more selfless than he was to break it off.

There were two realistic competitors: one, Ta Taag, a fiery Knight, and two, Ceva Nar, a former Prime Minister from outside Zakuul’s traditional borders who nevertheless had studied the Empire in greater depth than most citizens had. Taag was easy to deal with: he liked to talk, he had good ideas, he articulated every talking point and seemed to mean most of it. Nar was stranger, cagey, more inclined to focus her attention on native Zakuulians. She wanted nothing from Tebbith’s hand, not even understanding.

Tebbith mingled. He comprehended. He made the full knowledge of the Jedi Archives available to all seekers of good faith. And, more often than not, he came to these gatherings in the conference center. Indo Zal the Master of Revels kept the scene hopping. For instance, here. A rich dinner had been swept away and dozens of the elite were standing, talking. The classical music was loud, and Tebbith silently followed the lyrics he had read. This truly was a rich land.

Restless, he threaded the noisy crowd and started to climb.

*

Indo Zal had been the Master of Revels. It wasn’t the kind of title to make one take him seriously, but he had become a political prisoner at Vaylin’s hand and personally aided the Outlander in running Arcann to ground. True, everyone had suffered under the sibling Emperors, but Indo Zal had had the means to do something about it, and he’d taken advantage.

He could go far. Very far. Not to the top; too many hands would be groping him there. But far.

Tonight was for power brokering. There was what was essentially a conference center not far from the palace, and across and through the three levels overlooking the floor, people swarmed. Skytroopers stood guard around them; the Alliance had been true to its word in transforming them to obedient guards. Indo liked that the Alliance leaned so heavily on reclaiming the resources of its conquests. It augured well for him.

The population of Zakuul’s capital had spiked as the exiled, the ambitious, and the curious poured into the absence of dictator. Speaking of which, he did want to get Ruth Niral to one of these events. She had avoided the site of her victory for weeks. Larr Gith said that she was drowning in angst, Tebbith that she was busy managing the Alliance. That couldn’t go on.

He looked down at the floor, a broad space broken up by snack tables and glass sculptures, courtesy of an artist’s collective that had been delighted to get commissions from someone who wasn’t a maniacal dictator.

He saw the way she walked before he even registered her in his vision of the floor. Larr Gith was down there, confident in stilettos, lush in dusky blue. She had been fighting, hard, to build a constitution that could accommodate Zakuulian culture and the best aspects of her mysterious Republic. His suggestion that a Sith Empire envoy could contribute had been greeted with a sneer even more venomous than the one she had started directing his way on sight.

The one he’d earned, after all, when he’d gifted himself one night with her and then gotten out of there.

He could not be an Alliance pawn. He must not be an Alliance pawn. On the contrary: the Alliance must owe him. That was all this was.

Larr Gith’s skirt was slit to the thigh. Her upper back was exposed by her low-cut halter. Her golden hair was braided and swept up, gemmed by a sparkling blue tiara. The twilight clusters on her ears could probably buy a house. She wore gloves. He tried not to think about how she felt touching him.

Koth Vortena, bona fide war hero, came out of nowhere to greet her. The man cleaned up nice. No military uniform for him, and no grimy long jacket; his color-graded orange tunic fit him to a T. His boots were better than Indo’s. Who knew a career renegade knew how to dress?

The two of them glittered and gleamed their way onto the dance floor.

“Our Master of Revels,” came a calm baritone voice. Indo looked over. Jedi Master Tebbith of the Alliance bowed slightly. “Are you not participating?”

Indo thought of Larr Gith on the dance floor, exquisite. “Sometimes a higher perspective helps,” he said. “Stay a while, Master Tebbith. I understand the Alliance’s success is largely creditable to you.”

The – Zabrak? – smiled a little. “An exaggeration, I fear, though I could lay a similar charge at your door.”

“Yes, well. This is a little embarrassing.” He rubbed the back of his neck for a few seconds for good measure. “Here’s the thing. You know Master Larr Gith.”

At once Tebbith looked down at the distant floor. “I have the honor of counting her as a friend and ally.”

“So you know her…very well.”

“We have been friends since we were both padawans. How far back that feels now.”

“Friends. Yes, good!”

“I agree.”

Tebbith was politely attentive. Indo Zal considered phrasing. “I have…disappointed her, in the past. But seeing her out in that chamber every day, fighting for my people…I want to help her in any way I can. I’ve been drafting a proclamation on behalf of the prison population – eighty-four percent political prisoners, mostly for uttering criticisms of Arcann or Vaylin. They’re a huge untapped resource now that they’re free to return to public life. I can get them to support a Jedi’s word, given a strong enough argument. And you and I are very good at strong arguments.”

Tebbith’s smile was outright shy. “I believe that could be a great help in advancing the cause of democracy. We should tell her immediately.”

“No! Don’t let her know I’m involved.”

Indo held his breath. Tebbith looked thoughtful. Indo really couldn’t be sure whether the Jedi would tip his hand or not, but advantage could be scraped out either way. Finally Tebbith spoke. “I will respect your privacy, of course, but I think such a powerful gesture….”

“Not today, my friend. I do this for Zakuul.”

Tebbith nodded. “I have no wish to meddle, but she liked you quite a lot, you know. She doesn’t mention just anyone to me.”

Indo Zal stopped flinching as soon as he realized he was doing it. “I know,” he said. “Come. There are more guests to welcome.”

The dusky blue whirled far away, and Indo turned toward the stairs.


	23. The Refuge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth and her son Rylon visit Jaesa Willsaam's Academy.

“Mom! Mom! Is it time to go?”

Ruth peeled her mouth off her pillow. Rylon was hopping in the doorway.

Well, today’s journey would be his first time off planet since his disaster in Quinn’s custody. Not Quinn’s fault. It would be his first time as a houseguest, anywhere. And there was an Academy to see.

“Just a minute,” she said thickly. “Got to get dressed.”

“Hm?” said Theron beside her.

“I’m going,” she said. “Expect me back tomorrow around lunchtime. I love you.”

“Nice,” he mumbled, and sighed back to sleep. Ruth didn’t bother him by laughing. She dressed in silence and slipped out to join her son. It seemed strange to head to the hangars without hangers-on, without a dire mission. But she went. They took the Fury at top speed into hyperspace and then leaned toward one another in their respective chairs.

He asked question after question that Ruth didn’t know how to answer about Jaesa’s planet, her Academy, her teachings, her Sith-ness, everything. Ruth did her best. His excitement was startling, and she wanted more of it.

The settlement on the green planet Arrend didn’t show up on Ruth’s sensors. She recalled Jaesa’s instructions and took a specific path, aligned to a distinctive mountain, then shot forth across the forests until visuals showed a cluster of rounded bronze buildings amid the dark green trees. Once in sight radio comms came through, and someone with a jolly voice talked her through landing on a little pad.

Ruth hiked up her hood and looked around. There were only three pads, and a short line of hangars built beside. The forest closed on all sides, but thinner on one: she saw the beginnings of a metallic building some ways away.

Jaesa Brindel, cheery in red, was standing on the path.

“Jaesa.” Ruth clasped her hands. “How the blazes did you hide your settlement?”

“We’ll get to that,” laughed Jaesa. “Rylon.” She bowed. “It’s a pleasure to see you.”

He bowed back, stiff and formal. “Nice to see you, Mrs. Brindel.”

They fell in together, following a beaten dirt path crisscrossed by smooth-worn roots from the trees around. The path ran by one grassy yard, then another.

They were full of people.

There were calls and shouts and bursts of laughter. Children of a dozen species ran around in the rumpled fashions of over a dozen worlds. People sparred and yelled their score, or _sang_ while they sat in wide ripples of meditation, or ran around like maniacs doing something to a compact orange ball.

Rylon looked around, wide-eyed. “I thought it would be like Tython,” he said quietly.

“I’ve never been,” said Jaesa. “But we cultivate our own style here.”

“You have classes here?”

“Some few of them, yes. Are you tutored on Ephel?”

“Kinda. The Force stuff is mostly Ru-Baden and Sana-Rae and me. Uh, and Mom. There are Force-blinds for the other stuff, we share some classes.”

“Good. That’s an important perspective to remember.”

“We–” All three of them tensed together as the orange ball, nearly head-sized, careened over the boundaries of a crowded playing field and straight for the back of Rylon’s head. Rylon spun, reached up, and froze the ball in place.

The field shushed, watching.

Ruth stepped forward to settle the situation down. Jaesa touched her hand, the lightest restraining gesture. And Rylon took a few steps forward, confident and curious at once, like he wasn’t sure this was really happening but if it was he was bound to hold up his end of the deal. “How do you play?” he said, hovering the ball over one hand as he headed for two approaching players.

Jaesa’s hand slipped down to squeeze Ruth’s and let go. “Let’s give him some time,” she said softly.

Ruth bit her lip. “Since Tython he’s never been with children like him.”

“He can have that here.”

“ _I_ never had friends like him, growing up.”

“Nice feeling now, isn’t it?”

Ruth looked at her. Jaesa didn’t look like a fighter after these years. She looked like a patient woman who did not bow or bend. Ruth looked back at the shifting muddle of tweens. “Harboring my child is always dangerous.”

“And we’re better equipped to do that here than anyone in the galaxy. I relied on your knowledge of the Empire to avoid Sith hunters back when the mission was individuals…and see how far we came from the start you gave us. So let me do this for him.”

Something invisible in the crowd hit Rylon and he went reeling, laughing among the others. “Jaesa, can he stay here? Please? Not right this instant, but soon.”

“The door is always open.”

“And what can I give you? Tuition? I don’t know…security details? Orbital–”

“You’re making a galaxy my girls can live in. That’s good for a discount on tuition.”

“Your twins! Where are they? We can introduce…”

Jaesa pointed at the minor mob. Impact sounds and laughter seemed equally balanced. “There and there. They seem to be getting along just fine. Come on, the senior students’ training ground is this way.”

The students on the beaten-grass training field Jaesa pointed out were full grown but still had the features of children. Ruth watched a dozen of them follow the movements of a red-clad Miraluka with two training blades.

“Juyo,” said Ruth. “Good, it’s hard to get a decent instructor for that outside Imperial space.”

Jaesa beamed. “Val’s one of the finest. Now I do expect to see you there sometime soon.”

“Me? There? But I’m no teacher.”

“Before you dismiss it, come to a complete stop.”

“I don’t follow.”

Jaesa stilled, brown eyes shining. “If you don’t want to teach here that’s fine. But I would ask you to hold up the momentum of everything else you’re responsible for, for just a moment. If nothing else is pushing you. If nothing else is asking you. Would you come here for a day and show my students, and your son, how to defend themselves?”

Ruth gave it a sincere try, because it was Jaesa asking. If Ops were quiet, if her friends were managing themselves, if there were time, if there were only _time_ …for this, and for her son and the sons and daughters that had gathered here to learn.

“This is going to sound strange,” she said.

“I’m listening,” said Jaesa.

“What if I didn’t want to teach lightsaber here?”

Jaesa nodded. “So that’s a no.”

“No. What if I wanted to teach something else instead.”

A tiny pause, a tiny smile. “What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll tell you when I know. I think I can do something else, I just don’t know what.” It had been a slow realization, that, not quite uncovered until now; but then, hadn’t her time at Ephel taught her more of her capabilities? “I have more than that.”

“Fully understood.”

“Can I see a classroom? Is there a lecture on?”

“More than one. We have ten forms here. The sixth form is getting a piece of Core World literature to discuss; there’s enough room for us to get in the back.”

“I can keep my hood up. No use hurling the Outworlder into your teacher’s lesson plan.”

“He’ll appreciate that. Come with me.”

The classrooms proved to be beyond a tallish administration building. Broad round buildings were divided into quarters, and Ruth and Jaesa slipped into one quarter to see a lecturer’s stand at the inner corner and high stained-glass windows of planetary vistas along each rim.

The lecturer was a robed Togruta with a rolling bass voice. Ruth surveyed the students as he read a passage aloud: they were varied in build and in clothing, and a few cast curious glances at the headmistress and her hooded guest but nobody lost the thread of the teacher’s narration.

Literature. Not Ruth’s strong point. Something, something, words. She looked at the stained-glass windows glowing with broad daylight. Each panel was a scene from a different planet. Balmorra was a scene of reeds and bormu; Alderaan a glistening white mountain over evergreens. There were stories there, battles she could remember in each spot. Lessons, maybe, somehow.

The day’s reading didn’t matter. Ruth got up and slipped out again.

Jaesa caught up. “Is everything all right?”

“History,” said Ruth. “They tell me everyone’s a slanted source, but you know I’ve seen things I could share. Things that could help, could illustrate why we pull together and where we can go. How much has changed, even just since you and I were students.”

Jaesa looked at her.

Ruth twitched her mouth, not knowing which way to settle. “Not appropriate?” For a second she would’ve done it anyway, walked into her own Alliance’s little classrooms and enlightened anyone who would hold still long enough.

“It is appropriate, Ruth.” Jaesa smiled. “Do you want to sort it out now?”

Having been approved, Ruth realized she had no idea what her next step should be. “Maybe food first.”

“All right. Dodgeball may have broken up by now.”

They talked of other things on their way down the root-textured paths. Their children, with their stark differences in upbringing and their possible futures now that contact had been reestablished. Men, briefly, happily. Kaeve was a stranger to Ruth but he had matched every move in Jaesa building this place. It was a stable domain, a good one.

“Look down there," said Jaesa. "Dodgeball has broken up. The cafeteria is this way.”

Parvin and Grega brought Rylon back to his mother in the long low cafeteria. Ruth ate slowly and talked only when Jaesa drew her out. The children were cautious under their mothers’ eyes. She hated to leave, but the sun was down, the downcast lights of the forested paths looked drowsy, and Jaesa certainly had more important things to be doing. Rylon said his goodbyes to Parvin and Grega and waited politely while Ruth and Jaesa exchanged parting words.

“They have dueling remotes here,” he said as he and Ruth walked out toward the Fury. “Stunners, there’s this whole test where you just see how long you can keep deflecting. People fall over trying ‘cause they get their legs frozen. Can we get stunner remotes?”

“I don’t see why not. You still need the light-power ones to practice deflecting bolts into things.”

“Yeah,” he said impatiently, “obviously. They bring in people from all over the galaxy to lecture about the Force. They never got somebody from the Jedi Council, though. Not secret enough. Can Master Tebbith come lecture?”

“I’m pretty sure he would love that,” said Ruth.

He slowed at the ship’s ramp and swiveled around. “I didn’t even get to see the dorms,” he said. “This place isn’t as big as Ephel but it’s almost as big as Odessen got. Parvin said I don’t get to know how they keep it hidden. Then Grega said Parvin doesn’t know either. Mrs. Brindel’s got to know, right?”

“It would be rude to ask,” said Ruth, though she meant to anyway. The preservation of Arrend in a galaxy so hostile to Light Side non-Jedi was nothing short of a miracle, and while Ruth had full faith in her former apprentice’s capacity for miracles, she was curious about the details. “Come in, Rylon. We’ll be coming back.”

He hesitated a moment longer. “Promise?” he whispered.

“I promise. Come in.”

He helped her rise up and into hyperspace, and once there she stood and walked around to where she could see his face. “So. What did you think?”

“It’s amazing. Why…I mean, uh.” Rylon chewed on that for a little while. “How come now?”

Because for a decade they had been separated by Ruth’s irrational Wrath? “I holoed her after I dealt with the Emperor. Then it seemed silly not to check in on one another.”

“I’m kinda between ages for their forms.”

“I know. That doesn’t mean you can’t go.”

“Really?”

“Yes. But it’s the middle of the term, I’m not going to transfer you today.”

“I get it.” He bit his lip. “People don’t commute there.”

“No, it’s a boarding school. That’s all right. You can go.” He squeaked. She gave him a moment to get his breathing under control. Those dark blue eyes were as round as round could be. “You would return to Ephel during term breaks, and some weekends.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I haven’t scheduled our next visit yet,” she said gently. “I do expect you to continue your studies with Sana-Rae in the mean time.”

“Sure.” He bounced. “Did Mrs. Brindel tell you what the Skull House is?”

“No, it didn’t come up.”

“Okay.”

That seemed like a bad place to leave that inquiry. Skull House? “If Parvin and Grega teach you Dark Side rituals we’re going to have a conversation.”

“Yes, Mom. Hey, does Theron know about me going?”

 _Ruth_ hadn’t known, not until she’d seen him light up in that crowd. “We’ll tell him together.”

And it felt good.


	24. Passing in the Halls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wynston gets a briefing from Lana, and Theron checks in after Ruth's success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darth Scythia was the Sith Inquisitor of KotDA. Upon her death, her apprentice Ashara took on the mantle of Darth Imperius for the Dark Council.
> 
> (Ruth and Wynston were romantically involved right after they met, years and years and years ago, during the level 10ish Dromund Kaas questline.)

Wynston caught Lana in ops and swept with her into the conference room. Then he pulled her into a hug, tight, until she squeaked.

“Sorry,” he said, without letting go. “It always feels cold down there.”

She slid her arms up his back and down again. “Still getting the silent treatment?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I was busy.”

He eased back a tiny bit, studied her face and found not an eyelash out of place. “We’re not on great terms, but even if she pretends to be asleep, I can read to her. Just the big news stories, places she hasn’t wrecked. It’ll give her something other than revenge to think about.”

Lana nodded crisply. “More than she deserves. I can help, if you want. I feel absolutely no need to improve Vaylin’s life in any way, but if it means that much to you….”

“No. Let’s keep her antagonism focused. And, presumably, dedicate some of our resources to the rest of the galaxy.”

She smiled. “Speaking of which.”

“Tell me where to go, darling.” At the risk of sidetracking them he kissed her, just a second against her gorgeously stained lips.

She kissed him back. Just a second. “There’s still so much work to do. I need you…in so many more places.”

“So soon?” he purred.

She laughed. “Truly. For instance, the first problem at hand. I need you to go to Dromund Kaas.”

All business, that. “Oh?”

“I need you to locate some of Darth Scythia’s files. It’s going to simplify our dealings with the Dark Council.”

“I’ll admit I haven’t looked in that direction in a while. How good is Ashara’s security?”

“Imperius, now. She thinks she has an apparatus as good as Scythia’s just because she inherited it.”

“Ah. I should discuss Zhorrid with her at some point. She might find it instructive.”

“She might find it insulting. Imperius may be a proud Light Side whatever she is, but she is a firebrand, Wynston. And far, far less reliable than her predecessor.”

He nodded. “Acknowledged. I’ll get your files.” He’d tracked Scythia for a few years, as anyone who cared about the powers of the Empire must, back when all he had had at his disposal was a superb toolbox and a lot of nerve. It would be nice to finally break into the legendary spider’s effects…even posthumously.

He hoped Scythia’s old offices had been left in reasonable order. He wanted to snag something for Lana. She deserved a little something for her role in watching the entire galaxy on only sixteen hours a day.

He found an excuse for another briefing topic, and another, both of which she could recite without reference to the console. Just watching her talking in his arms was enough to start a day off right.

“And have you warmed up enough to survive the day?” she finally said, eyeing him.

“You know that, mission notwithstanding, I do dislike the cold.” He kissed her once more. It was the kind of reassurance she liked, which was good, because he couldn’t get enough of it. “I’ll be in touch.”

He didn’t make it to the door. Theron let himself in and stretched, rubbing his neck. “All right,” he said, “What did I miss?”

“How is she?” Lana said, clearly trying not to smirk too hard.

“Ruth’s great. I’ve never seen her and Rylon so excited.” He was practically humming. “She said it didn’t count ‘til she got to share it with me, but you should _see_ the look on her face.”

 “She means it when she says that,” said Wynston.

“I…I know. That’s kind of what makes her her, isn’t it?” Did Wynston enjoy seeing Ruth’s fiancé acknowledge that? Yes, a little. He preferred to know she was appreciated. “Seriously,” said Theron. “Go see her.”

“I will,” said Lana. “Wynston, if you want to make a stop.”

Wynston laughed just a little. “I know what she looks like.” At least in the areas of anger, affection, and sex, and really, that covered most things. “Take care, both of you. I’ll be back soon.”

“Hey, I'm good for work too. What’s he after?” said Theron.

“Trouble,” said Wynston and Lana, and Wynston laughed louder on his way out the door.


	25. Scholarly Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tebbith gathers his thoughts on a number of recent developments.

The question of Vaylin could not go unanswered forever. Tebbith understood that she was in isolation, as it wasn’t safe for anyone to come near her. Trapped by her own power, again. It galled that he could not yet solve that.

Tebbith hated to leave Zakuul in flux, but there came a time when you had to pick a soul. For one day, it could, it had to be her. No one else was going to try.

Koth had let him go with a cold wave. Koth disagreed with this choice, and given Vaylin’s crimes against Koth’s home and people Tebbith could understand. Still, he went.

He took the unassuming Defender-class vessel that someone had named “an Idea” in the sanguine hopes that nobody could destroy it. He exited Zakuul’s blurry atmosphere, passed the guard of Eternal Fleet vessels under Ruth’s distant command, set a course, and pressed into hyperspace.

Then he recorded. He wrote fragments of speeches, he wrote some of his personal diaries, he wrote to Vaylin, he wrote some of the histories he had never sent to his former colleagues on the Jedi Council, though surely understanding the past in compassion and detail was the most common ground he had left with them.

He wrote to Koth, whose bed he had shared every night on Zakuul, and whom he had left behind.

*

_Zakuul stands poised to become one of a brotherhood of nations, a proud creator of history – a land of equal citizens. This chance is the responsibility from which all honor springs. And you are an honorable people._

*

_Three years ago I wanted nothing more than to sit in my archives and make sure things were alphabetized correctly. Now, looking back, that seems so empty…respectable, yet utterly beside the point. When I began to fall into a history too large for my mere self I resisted. When history chose my friends, I allowed myself to drag behind. Now…what? Am I wiser, braver, am I better than those I seek to guide? Has surviving what I have survived made me an authority? Is this looming space where a great man should be small enough for me to lodge in?_

_Once I would have asked a room full of friends to debate, an intellectual exercise, no more. Now that seems singularly self-centered. I must be as I am, and surely someone will tell me when I’ve done it wrong._

*

_Vaylin,_

_When I term you Princess it is to seek back, before the Empress who slaughtered worlds, before the High Justice who scoured planets. To the time before they told you to dominate an Empire. When their torment had not yet reached that level of sophistication._

_I term you Princess because you are royal, and because you will come into your own, in a way I have not the vision to predict. I do believe that. Someday you may sincerely believe it as well. I yield you limited homage, yes, but you will find that it is not coerced, nor insincere._

_And it will not diminish._

*

_The story of the Outlander is a complexity that requires an understanding of a psyche split along faults, yes, but fundamentally logical ones. She plumbed the depths of Sith culture, but when the crisis enveloped her, she turned away, offering mercy instead – because a galaxy in which mercy exists was for her more important than one in which her lightsaber was the final arbiter._

_A galaxy in which mercy exists was for her more important._

_This, indeed, was her rejection of her past ascendancy, and the defining characteristic of her new one. Those who believe that her power never changed from Wrath to Outlander are missing a subtle but essential point. Her transformation from peerless warrior to peerless warrior was as profound as the training of a new padawan. Or, inversely, the fall of an experienced Knight._

*

_Koth,_

_We have been lovers for less than two months. There are words I must not say to you, ideas I must not be the first to broach. You are the navigator. You set the pace, the direction, the destination, and it is the fascination of a lifetime to sail with you._

_I love you with a passion I can neither comprehend nor control. If deleting that sentence could bring this matter back into the compass of my will…I think I would record it another twelve thousand times. You don’t know how bitterly I regret every necessity that draws me far enough away to write one of these. But you will know how eagerly I return._

*

Around and around he went, editing, filing, opting not to speak yet. Someday he would find the right pulpit. Or, perhaps, it would all be filed and placed in a holocron where it would wait to speak to someone, maybe months, maybe centuries. Tebbith was under no illusions: people who appreciated archives of old thoughts were rare, and he was not an important scholar.

He sat in the captain’s chair, beside the empty navigator’s seat, and he recorded.


	26. Empress: The Fifth Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Force users unite to manage Vaylin and get more than they bargained for, Tebbith in particular.

Tebbith flew back to Ephel. He got some updates from Ruth, then went on to what he had come for.

He went down the stairs, to the deepest brightest cell.

He stopped dead in the hall, staring at the chamber and its attendant forcefield. “Shade of Bastila,” he breathed, “what happened?”

“Master Jedi?” called one of the guards. “She hasn’t said a word.”

Vaylin stood in the center of her shielded room, head high, feet planted wide, arms crossed over her chest. Around her was a ruin. Both her chairs had been smashed to pieces and the pieces evidently used to smash the clear storage drawers, the non-networked console, and, in part, the frosted transparisteel divider that concealed details of the refresher. The sheets of her narrow bed were gone, the mattress sticking up in tufts. Her sleeves were torn and ragged. She was looking happy with herself.

She yawned artfully, just as though her Force-denied rampage didn’t strike her as unusual. “You came all this way to see me, Jedi?”

His heart sank. He touched his crown of horns, two four six eight ten. “I did. I had hoped to speak with you.”

“You’re wasting your time. Do what you’ve come to do, or slink back to your impotent Alliance. Don’t pretend you don’t hate me.”

He took a deep breath. His thousands of conversations on Tython had done nothing to prepare him for genuinely bad faith. “Do they teach you? That rage is the Force and the Force is rage. Do you require someone’s pain to feel something?”

Her good mood evaporated. “I feel nothing! You’ve locked me in an airtight box, so stop asking about the oxygen!”

“Very well.” But this was an errand of mercy, and the people least deserving of it were the ones who needed it most. “I need to consult with the Outlander. I’ll see about getting your cell cleaned up.”

“How will you manage that, I wonder?” She smiled acidly. “Run along, minion.”

*

“Lord Niral.” Ruth was standing in ops.

The Human looked away from the big board and smiled. “Master Tebbith,” she said warmly.

“It’s Ekkage,” he said, remembering the code word. “She lost her temper, over what specifically I don’t know. She has destroyed most of her enclosure. When you have time, I’d like to go down with you and Lana to restrain her while our people refurnish the place.”

“I can’t do this every time she breaks something.”

“Trust me. It’s necessary.”

“Very well. I have time very soon. Do you have the materials?”

“I’ve sent for them.”

“It’ll be risky without Larr Gith.”

“Ekkage won’t be at her full strength. Not after being denied for so long.”

“If anything goes wrong. Anything. I will knock her out.”

“That’s all?”

Her shoulders slumped. “That’s all,” she said, slipping out of her command tone to the softer voice he rarely heard. “You know I’m not doing this to punish her.”

“I think few others would understand it. I’ll call on you.”

*

They came down together: Lana, Ruth, Tebbith, and three workmen. The Force users managed the furniture-moving, which entertained the workmen no end.

Vaylin was lying on her back in the midst of the wreckage, hands folded behind her head, legs relaxed and crossed at the ankle. “What, Life Day already?” she sang. “Allll for me?”

“We’ve come to replace some things,” Tebbith said anxiously.

“The workmen are off limits,” said Lana. “I will stop you.”

“What,” Vaylin said sardonically, “are you on the Outlander’s side today? I must put that in my diary.”

“We’ll wait out here while they work,” said Ruth. She set down a chair and moved over a few paces. “Not one of us has a saber for you to take, but we are armed. Lana’s going to open the forcefield and you are going to walk to us, slowly. Understood?”

“Fine.” Vaylin stretched, arching her back high, and stood, and dusted off her sleeves.

Lana moved to the complicated series of controls tucked in an alcove out of sight of the cage itself. “Three,” she said. “Two. One.”

The forcefield came down. The fallen empress Vaylin faced the leadership of the Dawning Alliance. Tebbith strained in his senses and was nearly knocked over. Without the Force-swallowing that the enclosure had been ritually bound to do, Vaylin’s presence was far beyond her size and age. It was thick, strangely soft, _dark_. Were he not a Jedi, he would bow.

Half of him wanted to anyway.

She strolled out. “There,” she said sweetly. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Then she swept her hands up for a rain of lightning.

Ruth and Lana were on her in an instant, gripping her arms, suppressing her physically and, to a lesser extent (they were warriors, not sages), spiritually. Nonfatal, thought Tebbith. If used well. The lightning spat and flowed, ceiling to floor, mostly striking between and around the mental bubbles of protection. Vaylin snarled and redoubled. Tebbith raised his hands and tried to suppress the purple storm, or at least direct it away from his friends.

(To the workmen’s considerable credit, five meters away in this cavern, they were working. They had endured the destruction of Odessen, and likely other ordeals. Tebbith made a note to see them well compensated.)

Vaylin had noted his efforts. She swam between the struggling Sith and Jedi toward him. He didn’t know what else to do. He reached out, palm outward, and thought.

Of what, he wasn’t sure.

*

Vaylin was standing behind Tebbith. Her presence raged like Tebbith had always imagined the sea. Strange, how many worlds he had been to, that he had still never been to the sea.

“What is this?” shrieked Vaylin.

“A place between,” said Tebbith. He looked around. The white floor and walls and presumable ceiling were pure and bright and featureless. It was a place for solemn deeds. “I don’t think the others will find us here.”

He turned around and stifled a cry. Vaylin was bound, hands at her sides, by mad strands and skeins of black shadows that clung around her and anchored themselves on random points in the white background beside and behind her.

She raised her chin as if trying to talk over the black strands. “What have you _done_?”

“It just happens. Do your people use holocrons? Sometimes they’re trapped…”

She shook her head, hard, and howled.

He let it dwindle to silence. “I wasn’t ready for this,” he said thickly. “The Jedi Council were going to tell me how to…how to soothe you, and I was supposed to supervise people. More than just me.” He had no authority here. “This wasn’t supposed to happen yet.” And he had no idea what to do.

“Do you think you can wipe me out?” snarled Vaylin. “Do you need your Jedi friends to destroy me, or do you only need them for inventing the good little Vaylin after?”

Was that really a fight for two? Tebbith stepped closer. It took a little concentration, but he could sweep aside the strands and black webbing trying to wrap her up. “Has this always been here?”

“How am I supposed to know? You’re the one who dragged me here.”

“I thought you fixed the restraints you father placed on you.”

“Yes, well, that _fixing_ was interrupted by your sorority.” She scowled at him.

He reached out. And in that moment he knew. He could wipe away her representation – it would take work, but it was in reach – and leave…what, exactly? He didn’t know that, either. He could destroy the problem, at the cost of any hope of recovery.

Gently, with mind rather than hand, he kept cutting. The shadows went limp when he cut them, and slid down her trapped figure to curl like so many hair clippings on the floor. He cleared and cut and gently released until she was standing on her own, nearly within physical reach.

Her mouth fell open. “It’s gone,” she whispered.

“What’s gone?”

“What did you do?”

“I just removed what was no part of you,” he said. A product of a botched exorcism? Or something older? He didn’t know. Vaylin was just standing there, panting, her orange eyes wide.

The world was silent, but for a wave just forming in the invisible sea.

He couldn’t tell what was going on in her head, but she wasn’t fighting. “Is this what it’s like not to be in pain?” he said quietly.

She looked at him as if just noticing him. “Will I remember this?” she said in a tiny voice.

“I see no reason why not.”

“Will you remember this?”

“I expect I will.”

“Oh.” She looked up and around, for once forgetting to sneer. “I can’t hear him. This is mine. This is mine. This is _mine_.”

Her mouth snapped shut and she charged.

Still he didn’t know what to do that wouldn’t hurt her. Still he didn’t know what damage he might do. He guessed, and hoped, that strength came from the mind rather than physical or even raw emotional power. He raised his hands and blocked her first wild swing. She could summon no lightning here, nor he a weapon. He moved through half-remembered martial forms, trying at every turn to avoid her snakelike strikes. He had the advantage of discipline, but her impacts were strips of fire to his naked mind.

He blocked, and sidestepped, and backed away, and blocked again. He didn’t fight back. It occurred to him that he had never voluntarily left this space. It had just ended when his conversations were over. Why were they here? Why couldn’t he control it now of all times, now when he needed to be the one in charge?

What else needed saying?

She flickered in that moment when his concentration lapsed. With a gesture she did something else – and the whiteness gave way beneath him. He fell flat on his back, banging his head against the newly re-solidified floor. She was learning the rules faster than he. He raised his hands, desperately trying to figure out how to throw her off balance, but Vaylin was already on him, kneeling on his chest, pressing her small gloved hands to his throat.

“I can help you,” he rasped.

“I think I have what I want.” She squeezed harder. Black spots started floating across the white worldscape. She leaned down to whisper in his ear. “You’re right. I _will_ remember this.”

Tebbith reached up toward her pale face. In the second of contact something shook, and Tebbith let his eyes close.

*

When Tebbith opened his eyes he was still flat on his back. There was dark stone, and nearby a bright cell. Lana and Ruth were flanking Vaylin, who was curled up, body bent over knees, shaking.

“Are you all right?” he said to the room in general.

“Tebbith,” said Ruth. “She’s stopped fighting. Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he guessed, and struggled to sit up. “Is everything…? The cell?”

Ruth was nodding toward the workmen. They picked up their tools and bolted up the stairs two at a time. He couldn’t blame them.

But Vaylin was still down. He knelt beside her. “Vaylin? It’s time.”

She brought her head up. Her eyes were rimmed in red but her cheeks were dry. “Fine,” she whispered. He offered her a hand up and she stood without taking it or looking at him, then re-entered the cell under her own power. Larr Gith reactivated the forcefield and all three jailers checked the Force bindings.

The conversation seemed incomplete. “If there’s anything else,” Tebbith said anxiously.

“Get out,” snarled Vaylin. “Before I finish what we started.”

Then his chance was gone. He hadn’t been ready, and he’d missed the healing she needed, and she wouldn’t give him another chance. His failure could not be more complete.

They left then, to return to the open air.

*

Vaylin felt as though an old plastoid cap poorly fitted had finally been twisted off, and there she was, open to the air for the first time. How much of Father’s influence had been left in her head?  _Is this what it’s like not to be in pain?_

Physical pain was another matter. The brutal vengeances of weeks of creative visualization had been soundly beaten out, at least for the moment. Once she would have scathed quadrants in retribution for that indignity. She still wanted to. Instead she focused on what was here. Vaylin settled on her knees next to one of her sterile new chairs and spotted what the workmen hadn’t cleaned up: the two broken pieces of the handset. Her mother’s poetry, the pretender had said. Mother had never been there for her. Ever. If Father’s voice was gone from her ears, well…this voice must be more distant still.

She touched the pieces together. Twisted scraps of wire and plastoid brushed at her fingers and refused to match up again.

Mother had never been there. Not even now, when supposedly either her counsel or her friendships with the jailers might do some good. It was pointless wondering what she would have said.

The pretender, dumping solace on Vaylin’s hands only because she knew she wouldn’t take it. Tebbith, pretending to free her with one hand and slamming the forcefield with the other. Wynston, annoying her with a persistence that bordered on slavish…yet never saying the one thing that might matter to her, that he could block the retribution to come. Half truths and half measures, and in the end Vaylin was caged and everyone else walked.

Now, with everyone gone, Vaylin folded over in the center of the last of her domains and, for the first time since it was forbidden her, cried.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here goes.
> 
> Crying is an act of vulnerability that is transgressive exactly because it was forbidden to the character for so long. Weakness is not surrender, in fact it’s rebellion, a taking back of an emotional space. It is an exercise in how to be other than how one was shaped.
> 
> This plot line is not straightforward. I don’t want it to come off like the character is failing, because she’s not. She is processing with every tool at her disposal. And she won’t stay down for long.
> 
> Not saying she's in the ideal emotional state for recovery yet...


	27. Patriot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Tebbith's absence, Larr Gith takes it upon herself to talk up Koth at the constitutional convention.

Ceva Nar was a smug customer, and had been ever since her rescue from house arrest. As candidate for consul she campaigned in showers of sparks and barrages of hard-nosed logic. She knew what was best for you. As an expert in what was best, Larr Gith found her impossibly grating.

But she sat in that convention hall, and she listened. This was Koth’s competition. She had to show weakness sooner or later.

Then she started.

Koth had answered some pointed policy question. Ceva Nar, Human, pale, pointy-faced herself, took it and sneered. “With respect, my opponent’s qualifications were that he deserted from the regular navy and hid outside Zakuulian space, learning outworlders’ ways, for years before sweeping in after our crisis had burst and taking up housekeeping with one of the Outlander’s closest cronies _on our planet_.”

Koth took a preparatory breath. Larr Gith set a slender manicured hand over his on the chair’s arm. It’s what Tebbith would have done.

Ceva Nar smiled unpleasantly. “Anything to respond with, Vortena?”

Larr Gith stood before Koth could. The setting was a vast open hall in the shadow of the Spire, that monument to the control of the Empire. That needle in the belly of the new republic.

The hall was packed.

“Friends,” said Larr Gith.

The people who had created this first draft of a Zakuulian constitution listened.

She leaped gracefully to the dais and smoothed her russet skirts over her hips. “Zakuulians.” She didn’t introduce herself. They knew. “I think there’s something you don’t understand about Koth Vortena, because he’s modest, and because my wonderful friend Tebbith couldn’t sell oorp to a starving man. Koth gave his _life_ for Zakuul’s people. He turned his back on his family. He left his chain of command. He made absolutely certain he would never see his home again – not while Arcann survived. And the scary part is he did it without a second thought. Koth Vortena wrote his passion for your people across the galaxy – faster than Arcann could erase it.” She turned toward the table where Koth was sitting looking stunned. “And he gave me the honor of implementing it in the Alliance.

“No Koth? The Outlander stays on ice. Maybe some of you would like that, but bear with me. No Koth? No Gravestone taking the fight to the Eternal Fleet. No Koth? Arcann survives to ravage another day. No Koth? Vaylin channels her unleashed power into total destruction of everyone who ever annoyed her, and if you’re the kind of person who would be sitting here today you cannot possibly tell me you weren’t on her list. No Koth? Your homeworld is gone, for some piddling irrational excuse. Yours. Yours. He put his life on the line to make sure no one had to face that fate.

“I owe him my life. More than that, I owe him my faith in fighting. He’s the real deal, friends. I didn’t impose the Alliance on him. He brought everything good about Zakuul to me. And now, after everything, he’s bringing it home.”

Things were quiet.

“Teb is sweet,” Larr Gith said softly, “but sometimes he fails to capture the point.”

Somebody clapped. Then another, then another, and it spread through the hall. When Koth stood it was to a full ovation.

“I only want to add,” he said. The room quieted. “She gave you the itinerary. But she wasn’t there for the reason. I went to school here on Zakuul. I grew up near the Izax Resurgent statue south of here. Saw it every day on the way to school. I graduated a cadet. I left Zakuul for the first time when I was eighteen, serving aboard a battleship. I’ve been a Zakuulian for just a little longer than Ms. Nar. And if I was ever a hero, it was for the sake of my home.”

Koth smiled unpleasantly. “Anything to respond with, Nar?” But first she would have to wait for the applause to end.


	28. Credible Threats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Calline takes professional results to Ruth and Wynston.

Calline stood outside the door to ops for a good ten minutes. People passing in and out seemed to assume she was on guard duty, which, to be fair, she usually was. She watched for weapons. She watched for demeanor. She realized that a lot of staff here on Ephel was selected for minimum threat profile. As long as they were good at their day jobs, that was fine. Calline’s Mandos could get this place up to speed in a matter of hours if they had to, and defend it against all comers to boot, but who asked her?

Finally she steeled herself and walked in.

The Outlander was standing next to Wynston and studying the big board, zoomed into a map of the area of Zakuul. Calline knew the area and she knew the major military movements. Torian and Akaavi were excellent sounding boards for that kind of thing.

The Outlander and Wynston seemed to notice Calline at once. The Human smiled her little mouth’s smile. Humans weren’t easy to read, but the Outlander was transparent. “Calline. What news?”

“Uh,” said Calline. “I met a guy. Zakuulian. Real clean-cut.”

“Problem?” said her brother.

“He wanted me to kill Koth.”

“I see.” The Outlander was serious, businesslike, as she exchanged looks with Wynston. “Thank you for taking this to me. I realize your profession frowns on this kind of report.”

Calline nearly spit, then thought better of it. The Outlander was a top-drawer client, and that meant good manners. “I didn’t take his money.”

“I’m glad. Any idea who he worked for?”

Calline held up a datacard. “Everything we got was here. We vet our jobs.”

Wynston accepted it, cradling it like a priceless artifact. Calline wondered whether the Outlander realized how much he loved her. Like a sister in battle, like a friend, if Sith ever got those. People thought Calline didn’t understand love because she’d never been in it, but she was uninterested, not clueless. And this was nothing so tedious as romance. Calline had one of her brother’s rare bonds, and so did this woman, and as long as she appreciated it there wouldn’t be a problem.

Wynston looked serious. “I’ll put this with the others.”

“The others?” said the Outlander.

“Contracts on other locals,” said Wynston. “Potential clients try to hire my sister fairly frequently.”

“Since I’m so close to you,” Calline said, straight-faced.

“It’s handled,” said Wynston.

The Outlander looked concerned. “You should notify me–”

“If there’s a credible threat? I always do.”

“But you’ve never mentioned an assassin.”

“If there’s a credible threat? I always do.”

Calline grinned. “All under control.”

The Outlander nodded. “Mandalorians do good business,” she said. “Give Torian my regards.”

“There’s…one other thing.”

The Outlander raised her eyebrows.

This was what had kept Calline outside psyching herself up for that long, and she chose her words carefully. “People say things about Zakuul. About things in the undercity. Superstitions. Gods. Torian and Akaavi want to hunt, but you’ve got rules.” Wynston had checked out after “gods,” not that he would ever say it. He had considerable expressive range on his face, but the politest 0.01% of it had a range all its own. Gods were, to his mind, never credible.

The Outlander still looked attentive. “Rules about independent military forces roaming on Zakuul’s homeworld? Yes, I do.” She frowned. “The Gravestone came from the undercity. More tech may be there, but I can’t plunder the planet. Rumors of gods aren’t enough of a reason, Calline. If your people are bored I’ll find you work.”

“Not necessary. Guess that’s all.”

“Is there anything else you need while you’re in town?” said Wynston, interested again.

“Nah.” Calline was low-maintenance. She liked that about herself. She nodded to the bigwigs, who smiled back at her, then spun and headed back out of ops without further fuss.


	29. Empress: The Sixth Interview.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth re-offers Vaylin a gift. (Ruth, Vaylin)

Ruth slipped downstairs after dinner. She had another handset, identical to the first. A collection of Senya Tirall’s poetry. Ruth wasn’t much for literature but Senya was pretty good. It was…nice, in a way, to have something so thoroughly her.

Scythia had sworn to punish Odessen if Ruth failed to kill Arcann. Senya had put herself in the way. So Ruth tried. And killed her friend. And failed to get Arcann anyway. Odessen had been smashed that day. Hence, Ephel, with the survivors.

She stopped on the stairs until she was sure she had her composure.

She nodded to the guards and proceeded down the corridor to the last cell. Vaylin was sitting at her non-networked console, glaring furiously. She didn’t acknowledge Ruth.

Ruth opened the transfer drawer and slipped the handset, then reactivated the drawer forcefield.

“More depressing reading?” Vaylin said dryly.

“No. The same you had. I haven’t told anyone what it is. It’s your business entirely.”

“How _gracious_.” She looked up, orange eyes blazing. “I suppose you’ll tell me you’re here because you’re worried about me?”

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“Ah, yes. And I suppose you know all about my motivations.”

“I don’t know a thing you don’t tell me, Vaylin. But I wanted to give you this and I’m not watching for what you do with it. You should also know that you can write files to your console. I’m not equipped to read them.”

Vaylin sneered. “Consider me abjectly grateful.”

“I don’t know if you can hate everyone forever. Still, this is yours now. Goodnight.”

There was something on the prisoner’s face there, just for a second. Not an opening, not yet. But Vaylin wasn’t threatening her life or her loved ones. Maybe Tebbith’s efforts had done something. A start, at least.

For now, she had to trust Senya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say that headspace piece was the last full-length piece...


	30. Not Her World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Larr Gith is frustrated on Zakuul. (Larr Gith, Ros)

“You’re leaving,” Larr Gith said flatly. After all the time it took her to get here.

“Yes,” said the Twi’lek barista Ros, dressing.

First Indo, then this. “Is this just a thing on Zakuul? People have sex then leave?”

“Well…yes. Why, do people on your world stay?”

“Barring security concerns, yes.”

“What do they do the whole time?”

“Sleep.”

“But…why?”

“Because they’re ecstatically fuzzed out, usually.” That was the _point_.

The Twi’lek looked skeptical. “I’m a little shaky, but that doesn’t mean I want to bother you all night.”

“You could, you know.”

Ros, dark, more interesting than lovely and all the lovelier for that very trait, laughed nervously. “I’ve got to feed Ekans. She’ll be crying by now.”

“Well, we can’t have crying. What’s your planet’s opinion on followup dates?” She had mixed data on that so far.

Ros grinned. “Real soon, sweetie.” And then she was gone.

Larr Gith, unlike usual, took an immediate shower and wrapped up neck to ankle before returning to bed. Every single night she had spent on this planet she had spent alone. Perhaps, like Tebbith, she should have brought her own companion with her. Sana-Rae’s life bond didn’t sound so bad now.

She thought about chatting with Tebbith and Koth, but they were probably asleep or busy. She thought about her fans back home, including Sana-Rae, but she didn’t feel like risking rejection again right now. One more person saying she didn’t have time would be too much. She thought, oddly, about Indo Zal, but he was an asshole. “Ugh.” Almost two months here. This was not her world. These people didn’t agree with her, didn’t trust her, didn’t sleep with her. There was something Larr Gith found uniquely uncomfortable about sleeping alone in the same life phase as getting laid. She braided locks of her hair in the dark until sleep caught up to only her.


	31. Heist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Alliance goes on a research trip. Calline is hounded about her clan plans. This started as a Wynston/Lana scene and went completely out of control. (Ruth, Theron, Wynston, Lana, Calline, Vette, Bowdaar)

The settlement was one of an order of warrior monks who knew more than they were letting on about a new threat to the Alliance…or an old one. The heist was Vette’s idea, but it would take big guns.

Just not Force users. Those were shot on sight. With cannons.

Ruth and Lana joined Theron for the sneak work. Wynston would speak on behalf of the Alliance at the front gate with Calline and twenty Mandalorians close at hand. Their hosts liked strength, and outside Force users you didn’t get much stronger than Calline. Even Wild Space knew her by now. Meanwhile Wynston had years of practice playing menace without lifting a finger. He hoped he wouldn’t have to go to that particular mood, but he always had it available.

“Zakuul is on track,” said Lana. “I think we can afford to look in other directions. Everything’s in order. This is practically downtime.”

*

The map was the best that orbital imaging could provide: an outline of the top layer of the complex and some hopeful suggestions for the major corridors beneath. It was enough to locate a culvert leading out the back of the largest building. Ruth and Lana made short work of it, and the team ducked in to start looking for…something.

“This way,” said Lana. “Do you feel it?”

“I’ll take your word,” said Ruth. “Maybe when we get closer. – Tebbith’s sneaking tricks would come in handy here.”

“If Tebbith weren’t allergic to displays of power,” said Lana.

“Guys?” said Theron.

“Yes?” said Ruth.

“I have a bad feeling about this.” He paused, then scoffed self-consciously. “Keeping eyes peeled.”

Lana pulled out her holo and pressed a button. “Wynston has our keepalive,” she said. “Next one due in ten minutes. Now it’s up to him to hold their interest at the door.”

“He’s good at that,” said Ruth.

Lana smiled, and walked onward.

*

“I come on behalf of the Dawning Alliance,” said Wynston. “We seek a mutual understanding.”

“From your Sith overlords,” said the gatekeeper, who had clearly been briefed. “Where are they?”

“I kept them away from your gate out of respect,” said Wynston. “You are an honorable people. I trust that this gesture indicates our good faith.”

“We can defeat those behind you who hide in armor,” said the gatekeeper. “Though I’m sure it makes a pretty show.”

Wynston didn’t turn, but he felt the ice flowing off Calline where she stood at the head of her troop.

“We can offer protection and trade goods,” added Wynston.

“Protection? Ha!”

“Can your warriors incapacitate spaceships?” said Wynston. “Ours can. We respect your abilities, and only seek to complement them.”

The gatekeeper paused, a hand at his ear. Then he nodded. “Select three,” he said, “and come with me.”

*

Ruth, Lana, and Theron turned the corner. The hallway was broad, done out in a rich red wood. The air smelled a little spicy, and the wide windows let in dusty sunlight. Ruth wouldn’t mind resting there if she weren’t on a mission.

“Cameras down,” said Theron, touching his temple.

“Here it is,” said Ruth, because by now even she could feel it. There was one door in the hallway.

“I’ll take it,” said Theron.

“No,” said Ruth and Lana together. Lana added first. “Let me. Ruth, be prepared for physical suppression.”

“On your mark,” said Ruth.

That’s when Theron heard the alarm.

*

Wynston was made to stand, along with Calline, Torian, and Akaavi, while the warriors sat around the table and assessed them.

But they were in the door. Wynston made the offers. He described the benefits. He did, in short, everything he could to distract the settlement’s attention from the looters in the back door.

Then the alarm went off.

“Where are your minions,” snapped the leader, but in truth their weapons were already out, and so was Wynston’s. He tapped his wrist-mounted shield generator and watched the bubble come up around his friends. The next operation was to time the on and off to let them shoot out.

The leader looked disgusted. “You have no honor!”

“Yes,” said Wynston, “I know,” and he let down the shield to fire once. Then again, and again.

*

Lana hauled the door open. She could practically hear Ruth’s jaw dropping. Inside was a shallow closet, packed floor to ceiling with glittering holocrons.

“We’re going to need a cart. Or Bowdaar, or both,” said Theron. “And fast.”

“I’m going for Wynston,” said Ruth. “If he’s trapped inside…”

“Go,” said Lana, and turned toward the trove while Ruth ran.

“You and me,” she said wryly. “At it again.”

“Didn’t we agree not to piss off entire military orders?” Theron shook his head. “Calling in Bowdaar. Tebbith’s going to have a field day with this haul.”

“If we get out.” Lana took her lightsaber in hand.

*

This place was designed to be inaccessible. That was probably some kind of religious requirement for these maniacs.

The alarm ripped through the hallways, washing over Ruth in intangible menace. Something smelled off. She took out her lightsabers. She had only the vaguest idea where to go, and she started dodging red laser barriers. She neither knew nor wanted to know what they triggered.

*

The welcome party had fought to the end, and Wynston hadn’t strenuously encouraged peace. Their alarm meant they were hunting his friends. He shook his holo and its little projection. “I don’t have this mapped,” he said. “We’d better go…”

“This way,” said Akaavi.

“What? How do you know?”

Akaavi grinned, white teeth gleaming between her Zabrak tattoos.

“You and Calline should start a club,” growled Wynston, and kept his blaster at the ready.

Which was good, given what they found at the next turn.

*

“Why did she go by herself?” groaned Theron.

“Because we’re needed here, or else the mission was a waste. She’ll be fine, Theron.”

“They hate Force users. It’s their entire recruiting spiel.”

Bowdaar came in at a run and unfolded a cart. “Vette always has these,” he noted. “At least she’s not firing this time.”

“She could,” said Theron. “Just saying, if she’s bored.”

“She’s minding the ship,” Bowdaar said seriously. “She gets worried when it’s left alone.”

“One little theft and she gets sensitive,” said Lana. “Let’s pack this up.”

*

Ruth was lost.

Two tall men sprinted around the corner and opened fire. She had to jump over half a dozen laser barriers just to get to them. If Wynston was listening he couldn’t miss the blaster fire.

The second man shoved her off balance. She staggered and fell into one of the beams.

Fire. Blasting from the wall. Shattering in its fury. Ruth spun out of the way and nearly ran into another blaster bolt. More soldiers were coming her way.

She dodged again. She tried to stabilize herself against the wall. There wasn’t one.

She fell.

She twisted, catlike, in the unexpected depth of the fall, and landed in a crouch. The chamber she was in was deep and bare of doors or window. Directly above she saw the telltale emitter of a considerable ion blaster.

Something buzzed. Red laser lines sprung into a crazed web all the way up the occasionally lumpy shaft. The additional men gathered at the edge and one of them laughed. They started chanting.

The ion blaster started humming.

This was supposed to be _under control_.

She reached up and started Force crushing the lumps, stripping one laser line at a time. It took some doing, but, working fast…

*

They heard the blasters. Calline and Akaavi loped ahead while Torian covered their rear. Wynston stayed where his shield could cover at least two others, and if Torian had any sense he would get in close if the fire got hot.

They reached a door, tall, wooden, elaborately carved. Wynston tested the handle. Then he leaned his full weight of the handle while leaning.

“Calline?” he said, and she pulled out the thermal detonator.

Wynston and Akaavi backed away respectfully. Calline activated the damn thing. “I was going to charm my way through,” Wynston grumbled.

“The firing’s stopped,” said Calline.

“Someone won,” said Torian. “Hurry.”

*

Lana only had to kill four people. The information in these holocrons had better be worth it. Part of her was academically curious; these things were clearly old, clearly dense, clearly…what, exactly? Zakuulian, or had they been contaminated by other factions yet unmapped? Theron and Bowdaar finished loading up.

“I’m going after her,” said Theron.

“You and what map?” said Lana.

“She has to have messed up every security measure from here to Wynston. And if anything slowed her down…”

“Go,” she said, relenting.

*

Ruth might not have time for every emitter. And it smelled worse here. She jumped to kick against one wall, then another. She passed through a red line and tried to rush ahead of the plume of fire.

It didn’t work. The cannon was winding up and up. The spectators laughed.

*

The door was dented.

“Bloody hell,” said Wynston. “it doesn’t end like this.”

Calline and Akaavi kicked the remnants open. Wynston rushed between them. He heard a cry that tore his heart. When he rounded the corner he opened fire with abandon. One man went down and into a pit at once.

“Get the cannon,” came Ruth’s voice, hoarse and echoey.

Wynston adapted his aim to the cannon’s little shield generator while Calline and Akaavi took out the remaining warriors with their electrostaves, smoothly beautiful in every motion. In the end the cannon required another judiciously thrown thermal detonator. At least Calline was happy.

*

“Every, single, one,” groaned Theron, firing at another emitter.

“She evaded quite a few,” said Lana. “I’m impressed.”

“I can’t believe you’re admiring her at a time like this.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m not in my right mind when it comes to her. You are, supposedly.”

The boom shook the floor.

“We found Wynston,” said Lana.

“Are you kidding? That was a thermal detonator.”

“He’s with his sister.”

“Right. Let’s go.”

*

Wynston shot out the emitters in the shaft. Ruth tried to run up and bound from wall to wall again. She flopped over the edge into the corridor, barely.

Wynston reached down. “What is a knockout like you doing in a lockdown like this?” He smiled crookedly, and Ruth hugged him tight. “Let’s get out of here.”

*

Bowdaar pushed the laden cart down the rugged path to where Vette had landed. He stopped when he saw the giant man stepping out into the way.

Bowdaar pulled his blaster. “Run along,” he said. “I only ask once.”

“What are you going to do, sling boxes at me until I obey?” He produced a blaster rifle from his back. “Now, then.”

That’s when two women vaulted from behind Bowdaar and swung their lightsabers.

“Go home,” said Ruth, holding hers before his throat.

“Now,” said Lana, aiming lower.

The man gulped and ran.

The party re-convened. Wynston holoed the rest of the honor guard, who seemed very happy about their own skirmish outside, and encouraged them on their way. Then he made for Vette’s ship.

*

Ruth settled in the crook of Theron’s arm in the wide seat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think they were that paranoid.”

“They were bored to tears by my offers,” said Wynston. “I resent that.”

Theron squeezed. “If you’re going to be crazy,” he said, “at least invite me along. You know I’d do anything to protect you.”

“And I hate to need it,” said Ruth. “Still, we made it.”

Lana sat, and Wynston crouched at her side. “Why don’t we see if we can get Tebbith back to look at these,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind a shot myself.”

“He’ll be the first to tell you they can be treacherous,” said Ruth.

Lana smiled. “I think they’ll find their match.”

“What are we expecting to see?”

“More whispers,” said Lana. “More clues about the organizations that didn't show up in Vaylin's Holodex. These people lived at the edge of Wild Space for centuries. Something of what they know may still apply today.”

“Plus it’s like Life Day for Tebbith,” said Theron. “He’ll love it.”

“I remember Life Day shopping being a lot less stressful than this,” drawled Wynston.

Lana nudged him. “You’ve never had to shop for you.”

Ruth looked over at the Mandalorian trio. “You’ve been quiet.”

Torian looked completely serious. “These two don’t talk much. I’d feel left out if I didn’t quiet down.”

“Given any thought to your hypercompetent club?” said Wynston.

“It’s called a clan,” said Akaavi. “And yes. We have. For months.”

“Hannac is a Chiss name, a foreigner’s name,” said Calline. “How can I ask Mandalorians to follow that?”

“We follow you,” said Torian. “Doesn’t matter where you’re from. Unless you think we’d dishonor your name.”

“I didn’t _say_ that,” hissed Calline.

“You could take a new name,” said Wynston, standing.

“And forget the glory she earned as Grand Champion?” said Akaavi in icy disdain. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand that I was Hannac as well once, and though I gave up that name I do understand that it can carry honor in other hands than mine. That means you, _bot’uhn_.”

Calline didn't blink. “You could take it back.”

“It’s better off with you.” He smiled crookedly. “And the brother who’s actually around for you most of the time.”

Calline leaned over and punched Torian’s arm. “I’ll think about it.”

“Progress,” said Torian, grinning. “He really can do anything.”


	32. Choosing History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth and her friends sort out what it is she can teach the young 'uns. (Ruth, Vette, Theron, Wynston, Pierce)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical note: Robo!Draahg killed Ruth’s father when he took the field in the wake of Baras’s betrayal.
> 
> Shadow of Revan was run by Scythia and Larr Gith. Calline joined on Rishi. Ruth joined on Yavin until the Servants called her off the case.
> 
> Poor Pierce has been soldiering in obscurity for a long time!

“You look happy,” said Theron.

“I am,” said Ruth, sitting beside him on the couch. “Are you?”

“Sure, but I don’t glow.”

“No. With you it’s all in the eyes.”

“Bleeccch,” said Vette.

Ruth and Theron laughed together. Even Wynston grinned. They were all in Ruth and Theron’s living room, and things were good.

“Rylon’s at school?” said Vette.

“Yeah, and it’s really something,” said Theron. “I thought it would be like Tython, but it’s…loud. In a nice way.”

“He ruined their test,” said Ruth.

“Well, we Force blinds have to be good for something,” said Wynston. “Do tell.”

Ruth started gesturing. “It was to use the Force to take a stone out from a hollow in another, highly placed, much larger stone. You had to stand behind and below the whole thing and use the Force to lift the little stone out and around into line of sight. It’s not easy for a novice Force user to do that to something they can’t see.”

“Or you just climb up and take it,” said Theron. “I’m just saying.”

“You scandalized the instructor.”

“Lateral thinking. Well, vertical, in this case. It’s a valuable skill.”

“Teach _them_ to have superpowers,” said Vette.

“Having Force-blinds around is educational,” concluded Theron. “That’s why you keep me around, isn’t it?”

Ruth squeezed his hand, but someone else spoke first, an expansive bass. “She needs someone to punch in more than four or five directions at once,” said Major Pierce in the doorway.

He cocked one thick eyebrow. Ruth nodded, suppressing a laugh. Pierce always said “am I late?” the same way. “We were just getting started,” she said. “Jaesa has invited me to come speak on a topic of my choice at her Academy. I wanted to bounce ideas off the people who have known me longest.”

“Plus me,” said Theron.

“Or best.”

“Plus me,” said Pierce, and let himself in. “You know what I’ll tell you, milord. Baras’s greatest hits. Or else the Bastion.”

“But that was all you.”

“Until Major Fade rolled in.” He sneered. “Right, maybe not that one. Are you sure I can’t visit her in jail?”

He never could and he knew it. Fade hadn’t been sentenced to neck-wringing. “I could talk about Naga Sadow,” she said. “I spent plenty of time in his tomb.”

“They could get that out of a book,” said Vette.

“What you bring is experience,” said Theron. “Tons of hands-on experience in some of the biggest events of the last fifteen years.”

“Any one of your hits,” said Pierce. “Starting with the War Trust. That’ll remind students which way to lay their bets.”

“It’s all right to still pick something a little separated from yourself,” said Wynston. “No one’s asking you to undress.”

“I think you should cover how Larr Gith kicked the Emperor’s ass,” said Vette.

Ruth didn’t quite follow. “Wouldn’t she rather do that?”

“Yeah, but this way you can get out ahead with the spin. How your killing him actually worked.”

“Tempting thinking.” Any lecture that nipped Larr Gith in the ego…

“Ooh, or what about the time we stopped the Revanite cult?”

Everyone quieted.

“Vette?” said Ruth. “That was Scythia. And Larr Gith. And Calline, I guess.”

“Though inventing history would be rich,” rumbled Pierce. “Who’s going to contradict the Outlander?”

“I was talking,” said Vette, “about the first time. On Dromund Kaas.”

“Ruth?” Wynston said idly.

“It’s a long story,” said Ruth. “You can’t pretend you’ve never busted a cult.”

“Very true.”

“Moving on,” said Pierce. “Vengean.”

“That was an isolated kill,” said Ruth. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

“Milord, you didn’t let me in on that fight. Let me at least enjoy it vicariously.”

“You know if Baras had allowed me to take more people…”

“Baras? Or Draahg?”

Ruth’s spine stiffened in an almost painful spasm. “I _never_ took orders from Draahg.”

Pierce spread his hands, palms down. “You beat him in the end. That’s the main thing.”

Time for a change of subject. “Are you coming to see my lecture?”

“Don’t know. Do they let the likes of me on planet?”

“Jaesa will let anyone I vouch for on.”

“Jaesa’s a shit judge of character.”

Quinn’s shadow. “Maybe, but that means she and I can be friends.”

“You, Scythia, and the Republic took out half the Dark Council in about six weeks,” said Vette. “You could talk about that.”

“Mm,” said Theron. “Good job, us.”

“As a cautionary tale about infighting? I like it.” Something, surreal in its disconnection to her world, floated to mind. “I don’t think those children are exposed to stories that violent.”

“Well, someone should fix that,” Pierce said cheerfully.

“I need them to understand that it wasn’t glamorous. An assassin to a Darth is still an assassin.”

“You did what you had to do,” said Wynston. “Baras would have acted much sooner if you disappointed him.”

“In a way, I never want those students to understand that.”

He nodded. “Let them study it for what it is,” he said gently. “An unconscionable world order.”

Pierce had stopped smiling. “Are you sure you’re from Intelligence? Thought they beat the rebellion out of you lot.”

Wynston eyed him. “Some of them beat it back in, I’m afraid.”

Pierce guffawed. “Don’t I know it. You sure you were never a soldier?”

“Oh, I’m very sure I was.”

“If you start on war stories I might puke,” said Vette.

Wynston frowned. “They sent me out to die. I obliged, more or less. We’ll laugh about this someday.”

“Wait,” said Theron, “is this before or after you became a super spy?”

“Sort of in the middle, really. Don’t sign up for military service. I don’t care how good a cover story it makes. Your spy handler may send you out for a meaningless death anyway but at least the spy will equip you adequately.”

“Even more life lessons we’re not giving the children of the galaxy,” said Vette. “So, senseless yet richly deserved slaughter of half the Dark Council? They’ll either eat it up or stop sleeping at night.”

“Which is the best kind of story,” said Pierce.

“Hey,” said Vette, turning to Theron, “you didn’t have anything to do with Corellia, right? I mean, wiping out a tenth of the Empire’s mobile forces would be something to put on the resume.”

“I would never say,” Theron said, grinning. “Wouldn’t Ruth and Scythia have gotten me if I were?”

“You’re a better spy than that,” Ruth said, singsong. “I was busy with Baras’s people, you would’ve had to take a number.”

“I’m glad we didn’t meet that way.”

The room fell away. Ruth smiled. “Me, too.”

“Cautionary tale,” said Vette, who for once seemed to be the most focused person there. “Reasons why you don’t murder a large percentage of your own governing body. The kids’ll love it.”

“You could just teach them how to hit things,” said Pierce. “Tell me you considered that.”

“I did, Pierce. My legacy as a bruiser is written across the galaxy. I want there to be one corner that remembers me for something else.”

He shrugged. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re the top bruiser.”

“One of your many virtues,” Wynston said calmly. “Let’s admit it, Pierce, you and I would only get so far without her. The whole package.”

“Truth.” Pierce harrumphed. “All right, are we hungry yet?”


	33. Empress: The Seventh Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vaylin is bored in captivity, and starts to read. (Vaylin)

Tebbith, having turned Vaylin’s mind inside out, had left for supposedly more important pursuits. Wynston was still coming down every other day or so to read news articles about places Vaylin would never get to visit again. She was coming to like the sound of his voice, damnably enough.

She sat on her hard bed. She slipped out the handset that she had scratched a hiding place for between mattress and bedframe. She knew she could have no secrets here but she felt safer when it was hidden.

She turned it on.

Senya's collection, possibly the last work of her life, was a simple text file. Written in Aurebesh, which was garbage. Vaylin picked around until she saw an option to display in a civilized alphabet.

Simple lines, usually rhymed pairs. They started small. Points of nature and of gods. Slowly details started creeping in: wishes for a people, for a person. For a young person.

Vaylin stopped herself. If Senya was going to talk about her children Vaylin needed to be ready, and she wasn’t, not yet. The woman would have been better off nattering about Izax some more.

She slipped the handset back into its hiding place. Some of the lines kept shimmering in her head, but none of her captors needed to know that. She tried to think of more threats to throw at them. It was her only pastime, she might as well master it. And remember the highlights when she got free.

It was lonely, down here. One more voice would take some getting used to.


	34. Fatherhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn gets unexpected news courtesy of Jaesa. (Ruth, Jaesa, Quinn)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This answers a question I had asked myself, not nicely, some time ago. Knights of the Dawning Alliance is not about Malavai Quinn. He got written out. But doing so meant separating him from his son, and I never, ever meant that to be permanent. So we have this…
> 
> Ruth and Malavai Quinn have had their ups and downs, culminating in a no-contact ceasefire. Their son Rylon stayed in Ruth’s custody because there was no safe place for Quinn to help raise him – the Outlander’s child was a target everywhere.

“Ruth,” said Jaesa over holo.

“How is Rylon doing?” said Ruth.

“He’s jumping into everything feet first. He’s very brave.”

“Good.”

“I wanted to talk to you about Quinn.”

Of all the ghosts to shove into a conversation...Ruth felt her throat closing. “What about him?”

“Rylon asks me questions, and I’ve respected your wishes on what to talk about. I was wondering whether you would allow contact again. A holocall, maybe.”

“And he came to you?”

“It's impossible to miss how you feel about Quinn. He's afraid to upset you.”

Ruth fervently hoped that it was possible to miss the exact details of how she felt about Quinn. There was a reason she refused to be on the same planet as him. “I see. Jaesa…” and then it hit her. “Oh, Jaesa. Your planet is safe from marauding Sith. If I can trust Rylon alone there…forget a call. Quinn could visit, with your approval. Under supervision, of course.”

“You would be okay with that?”

“My enemies can't reach him there. It's the perfect chance. I know I robbed him, but Rylon was too vulnerable.”

“If I know him, he understands that.”

“Still.” It felt right, at least trying. “Contact him, if you're willing. I won't get in the way.”

Jaesa nodded. “I’ll let Rylon know right away.”

*

Quinn saw the source of the holocall. Incredulous, he handed over control of the bridge of the _Tenacity_ and went to his quarters.

Jaesa Willsaam, looking long-haired and sedate, smiled at him.

“My lord?” he said stupidly.

She smiled. “Jaesa.”

“Of course.” He hadn’t seen her since the days when she’d supervised his visits to baby Rylon, over a decade ago. The lovey-dovey pretend Sith and he had little else in common. “To what do I owe the...surprise?”

“It's Rylon. I'd like to bring up the possibility of a holocall, and a safe visit.”

 He had given up his son. He couldn’t keep Rylon’s safe against R–the Outlander’s enemies. And he couldn’t stay within the Outlander’s circle. By process of elimination, he couldn’t keep the boy. If something had broken that balance, and if it wasn’t Ruth saying so…

He tried to speak and only croaked. On a second attempt he managed, “What happened to her?”

Jaesa’s eyes went round. “Oh, no! She's fine.” He breathed like a man half drowned. “No, Rylon suggested I help him call you.”

Composure clamped down. “He never would have done that knowing that I hurt his mother. What did you tell him?”

“The truth. The way I saw you.”

Something blindingly optimistic, then. But if it meant seeing Rylon again… “When can he...?”

“He’s on campus now. I can really schedule it any time.”

“She is aware of this?” Because if she wasn't he should stop his ears and take oar now.

Should, yes. Whether he would...

“I have her stamp of approval,” said Jaesa. “I understand that she hates being near you...but I don't think she hates you.”

“I fail to see the distinction, but I won't quibble with its fruits.”

“Rylon is excited, you know.”

Something in the back of his head was keeping his spine stiff, his chin up, his hands folded, idiotically continuing to manage things like not dissolving. “How did you... _why_ did you prevail upon her to permit this?”

“The visit was Ruth’s idea. He couldn't visit you offsite because it wasn't safe. But my Academy is safe. Even for the Outlander's child. That changes everything, doesn't it?”

He swallowed hard. “Please, contact me at any hour. I’ll clear my schedule at once.”

She nodded. “Oh, and, Quinn?”

He would do anything she asked in that moment. “Yes?”

“Hi. It's nice to see you again.”

He nodded. “It seems I am once again in your debt.” He would like to believe he was past signing his integrity away to Sith. Only, she was no Sith, and she was not playing for his integrity. He ached to believe it.

“Pay it forward,” she said. “To your son. There'll be time.”

Ruth softening, Jaesa championing. The very traits he had called weakness once. Now those two women were perfect, and beyond that…there was a future.

Seconds or minutes later, when the comms from the bridge beeped, he unlaced his hands and returned to his job. At some point he caught himself smiling in a console’s reflection, and let it stay.

 


	35. Working Title "Diffident Teb"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tebbith describes risks to Koth. Happy Valentine's Day!

Tebbith sat up in bed. Koth had turned the thermostat down a couple of degrees. Smart and thoughtful. Tebbith let his sweat cool.

He had counted their hours together from the beginning, hesitated over whether to count the sleeping, decided in the end that yes, that was intimacy too. He had spent his share of time just lying awake, being, and being with Koth.

“This can't be what you wanted,” he said.

Koth set up and laid his hand on Tebbith’s. He looked as flushed as Tebbith felt. “A relationship with someone handsome, kind and decent who's crazy about me?” he said. “I wanted.”

“Surely your first choice would be a soldier, or a pilot, or some principled commanding officer who finally, finally snaps because of the way you spin your hydrospanner every time before you put it away.”

“‘Hydrospanner’?”

Tebbith cleared his throat to hide the grin. “Someone who catches on to those lines faster than me. I am a Jedi. Socially stunted, excessively serious. If you and I get any closer I'm going to have to explain us before the Jedi Council. Is that really the kind of harassment you want?”

Koth caught on, though he couldn’t possibly know to what. “How serious is this?”

“Expulsion from the Order, if done wrong. There's precedent.”

Koth’s eyes widened. “Is there precedent for them butting the hell out?”

Tebbith twisted uncomfortably. He leaned back, arranged crossing his legs, and faced Koth, who settled facing him in the same pose. “That's what expulsion would be,” he said. “Monitoring for dangerous outbursts, but otherwise washing their hands of my deviant ways.”

“But that's not fair! You did everything right, except for caring about me. It's not right.”

“Let me be clear.” Tebbith brought a hand up to cup Koth’s cheek. “I am Jedi with or without the Council, and I am yours with or without their permission.”

Koth looked from eye to eye. “You're serious.”

“I’ve thought very seriously about this.”

“I'm not going to let them kick you out of the Order.”

“Ground yourself. They respond to compassion and reason. And at the same time, it's up to us to remind them what compassion and reason must dictate.  There is no way this is wrong.”

“I…I know. I didn’t realize what you were risking for me.”

“Nothing I don’t want to offer for you.”

Koth was breathlessly still against his palm. “Every time I’ve ever said ‘I love you’,” he said, “it’s blown up in my face. Sometimes instantly, sometimes…after too long a wasted run. When I say I trust you what I mean is if I’m wrong it’ll kill me.”

“What if you don’t have to say it first?” The pause was all he needed. “I trust you. And I love you.” His extensive readings had never seemed to say anything truly applicable about love, so he stuck to the basics.

Koth kissed Tebbith’s palm and closed his eyes as if resting. “Then I guess we’re really doing this,” he said softly. “Let’s out-argue the Jedi Council…in a little while.”


	36. The Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth provides a lesson to the children of Arrend while Jaesa, Quinn, and Rylon observe.

The classroom was one of the big wedges in the huddle of round lecture buildings. The stained glass windows all along the curved edge glowed with scenes of planets: Makeb’s mesas, Ilum’s ice promontories. Strangely, familiar, bittersweet, a waterfall on Dromund Kaas.

“I can’t do this,” she informed Jaesa.

“You’ve negotiated harder audiences than this,” said Jaesa. “You’ll be showing them something valuable, something you earned. You have every reason for confidence. Are you willing to answer some questions after?”

“I hardly think they would let me go without it.”

Students were filing in in terrifying number. Older students, mostly, though a lot of younger ones were covering their faces and looking shifty as they crept to back seats. Ruth hurried to intercept when Rylon arrived. She cut through the crowd to reach him. He turned at once. “Mom,” he said.

“Did you get your chance to talk to your father?”

“You just missed him.”

“It’s okay,” she told his tension. “He’s treating you well?”

“Yeah, Mom. He is.”

“Good.” He backed off and merged into the crowd once more. When she looked for him next he was in a tight group near the back of the room, chattering.

Ruth stood at the podium. “They’ll pick up your voice wherever,” said Jaesa, “so you’re free to move.”

“All right.”

A gawky-looking teenager carried a camera drone in and lofted it to stare at Ruth from near the ceiling.

“Overflow seating can watch,” said Jaesa.

“ _Why is there overflow seating_ ,” muttered Ruth. She could face the entire HoloNet as Commander of the Alliance but these students were different. But the clock was sliding onward, and Ruth cleared her throat. The lecture hall was packed, and students were standing around the edges and across the back, hiding the waterfall, blocking the light.

“Everyone,” she said. Her voice held. “I’m very pleased to be here today. My name is Lord Niral. I’m here to describe how the Sith Empire lost the war with Zakuul based on a crisis of its leadership, starting back with the Dark Council purges of the year 11. Infighting, and the Emperor’s withdrawal from Imperial space, nearly destroyed the Empire before Zakuul could get to it. But let me start with the war on Corellia, an Imperial catastrophe of its own doing…”

People paid attention to her. She heard waves of whispers at odd intervals – what she found shocking was apparently not what the children found shocking. But she went on until the unceremonious withdrawal from Corellia. It rankled even now, but they didn’t have to know that. The important thing was that it could not happen again, not for such stupid reasons as apprentices destroying their treacherous masters and masters hurling themselves facefirst into hair-balanced military situations.

Somewhere along the line she had stopped seeking individual faces during speeches. Too much risk that one furious person would throw her off entirely. Here, though, she did check. Some children seemed skeptical, others rapt. But they were listening.

Jaesa stepped forward. “She can answer a few questions now.”

The hands shooting up looked like an improbable forest. Ruth picked one at random and pointed.

“Is it true you were the Emperor’s Wrath?” said the boy.

Oh. “Yes,” she said. “I was.”

“How did you that when he was in Zakuul? Did you know about Zakuul?”

The competing questions quieted. The room chilled.

“No,” she said. “He spoke to me through intermediaries. I never knew his physical location. I never suspected Zakuul’s existence.”

“Did you kill Darth Vengean too?” “Did you kill all the Republic generals?” “Did you kill Arcann?” Yes, yes, yes and yes and yes. Ruth’s lips were going numb from the effort of keeping a calm face. A young girl, not even Rylon’s size, raised her hand up straight, half standing to do so.

Ruth liked the earnest look of her. “Yes?”

“Why didn’t you protect Angvar?”

Ruth stooped to face her. “Where is Angvar?”

Her face twisted up. “You don’t even know. You say the Outlander wants to protect everybody but _you weren’t even there_.”

“Was it one of the worlds bombed during Arcann and Vaylin’s campaigns?” The girl scrunched up her face and said nothing. “I’m sorry,” said Ruth. “I couldn’t reach every planet myself.”

 “So why are you _here_ ,” she grunted, and ran.

Jaesa waved one hand. “That’s all,” she said. “Classes resume at three. Dismissed.” She sounded as authoritative as Ruth had once felt, slinging that word to make a problem go away.

The talking rose to a bellow as the students started to flow out. A gawky boy hung back. When the room was almost empty he approached Ruth, radiating caution.

“Mrs. Outlander,” he said. “Ma’am.”

“Lord Niral,” she said gently.

“Lord Niral. I was on Zakuul when Arcann came. M-my parents were working in the palace. You got Arcann out of there before he could hurt them. They said you were scary.”

She looked up at him. She had a pretty good idea what she looked like. She was plain and lean in grey, and she did not grasp the Force.

“Thank you,” he said. “I’d rather they were scared than…”

“I understand. What’s your name, son?”

He gave it, and she committed it to memory. She hoped, glumly, that there were a lot more like him.

“How are you holding up?” said Jaesa.

“I guess I forgot that children are part of history, too. And I’ve impacted a lot of them.”

“They’ll learn that you’re not just a historical note. Will you come back?”

 Ruth pinched the bridge of her nose. “It felt right, talking. Instead of stabbing or ruling or spy-coordinating. Even answering questions, letting them know…if I do this again there’ll be less about ‘oh wow the Wrath’ and more about what I had to say. There’s so much more that needs explaining.”

“So what I’m hearing is, you’ll be back.”

She had to smile. “If you’ll have me.”

“Come on, let’s eat. You’ve earned it.”

*

Jaesa remembered Ruth’s lessons. They had both been nineteen when they met, but Ruth had had a self-possession and decisiveness that Jaesa could only summon in bursts. Ruth told war stories of her own, and many more that she had heard from people she respected. She had a sense of history, from her own family, from her surreally terrible training on Korriban. She had delivered such horrors so calmly, so matter-of-factly.

She had grown since then.

Jaesa read the frustration and regret in Ruth’s words as she talked about the humiliation of an Empire that had all the ingredients of greatness…paired with sociopathic cooks. She remembered Ruth’s behavior at the time: cold, vicious, driven by the heartbreak of her husband’s betrayal. For a while, for years, as the Wrath savaged the galaxy, Jaesa had feared that Ruth neither understood nor cared about her own path of destruction.

But the Wrath was gone, and Ruth had survived, and she was letting the children know the dangers of that path. They were excited over a person who had killed so many people, but Ruth let them know what glory lay on that path: not much.

Jaesa couldn’t be prouder.

*

Quinn had meant to leave Arrend as soon as his precious visit with his son was done. Ruth had been en route and he had no desire to find out how she felt about his presence now.

But someone had mentioned a remote broadcast of the lecture, and he had followed the crowd of students into overflow seating.

He knew Ruth from the holonews. She was self-possessed, upright, bold – everything she had been as a girl in his memory, and everything she had taken as an adult. There was no surprise here. At least, not in her manner. Her words, on the other hand…

She seemed to bitterly regret the entire Corellia campaign, including her own role. Was this really what she thought of the Empire, of herself? Was this what she’d thought of their time together? Was this an opinion poisoned by the Republic and Jedi she had surrounded herself with, or was this what she had always believed?

Was this, this disgust for war, the only perspective their son would ever get? Could he possibly be ready for the galaxy with only that to prepare him?

He would have to give Rylon the other angle, and let Ruth ban it if she was willing to break their silence to demand it. Stories of battle, of honor. Stories of the peerless warrior he had known, before the Republic and Jedi had broken down her will, made her apologize for the struggle that had defined her. Ruth made it sound like Sith maneuvering was utter trash. She had a point, sometimes. But the underlying principles were sound and she appeared determined not to acknowledge that.

He stayed still as long as her voice lasted. When she fell silent he left, before she would have time to get out of her lecture hall.

*

Rylon had never seen his mother sad in public before. He wanted to slap the girl who blamed her for not saving her planet. Part of him wished Mom had saved the planet, yes, but the girl was mean to bring it up when Mom was there for a different reason.

When Mom was there to teach people, the way she’d told him in halting words over months and years.

Jaesa’s daughter Parvin leaned toward him in the crowd “Your mom’s a badass,” she said.

“Parvin!” said Jaesa’s other daughter Grega. “You can’t say…glll-ass.”

Parvin adjusted her black turtleneck collar. “Well, it’s true.”


	37. (Darkness prompt) Election Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Koth and Tebbith get results. Tebbith realizes something unpleasant about his attachment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Short Fic Weekly Challenge Blast from the Past prompt, Darkness.

After epic preparations, Election Day came on Zakuul. Reports were set up from a hundred worlds as the people of the Eternal Empire marked the beginning of the Eternal Republic. Tebbith could do without the “Eternal,” but Koth adamantly said that the pride of eternity ran too deep. The important part was that Empire was gone.

Tebbith waited in the grand hall near the Spire. A huge console screen had been erected in the middle of the room. Figures crept in, number upon number.

He held Koth’s hand, and he waited.

“Koth,” said Indo Zal, “I’ve arranged a small reception to be rolled in as soon as results are cleared.”

“Thank you,” said Koth. “Did you get the chance to vote?”

The little man puffed up, beaming. “I did. Not a bad conclusion to a few months’ work.”

Tebbith felt it. He raised a hand and enveloped the dart in the Force before it could reach Koth’s neck. He rose from his chair and pivoted. Next to a column at the edge of the room, the gun was tilting up as the shooter lowered his head again...

Tebbith raised a hand. The shooter's jacket rippled and wrapped over his head. Tebbith pulled, not gently. It occurred to him that with a little more force he could spare everyone the inconvenience of jail and trial.

His chest went tight. Where had that come from? He beckoned a couple of people over. “Secure him,” he said. “On attempted murder.”

Koth stood, looking shocked. “How did you even see that?”

“The Force is my ally,” he said. “It almost wasn’t enough.”

“Tebbith.” Koth looked into his eyes and Tebbith was shocked to see raw fear there, fear as sharp as Tebbith’s. “It’s okay.” And, almost fragile, “Calm down.”

Tebbith shook his head, hard. “I am calm.”

Koth caught his hand. “Have a seat. We’re fine.”

Numbers kept going, and in time Tebbith remembered to breathe, and to let the numbers in. Koth held his hand. There were no further interruptions.

“You okay?” murmured Koth.

Tebbith adjusted his grip to something gentler. “Yes.”

As for the election, it wasn’t even close. The room bustled and rumbled more and more as reports came in. Half the room seemed ready to move on to policy at once; the other half circulated, chattered, cheered.

The point beyond which Koth Vortena would win even if every remaining precinct went to his competitors came, and tipped. Koth Vortena would be Consul.

“That’s it?” said Koth through bloodless lips.

“No one can overturn it now,” said Tebbith.

Koth blinked hard. “I can’t believe this is happening. Any minute I’m going to wake up and be on the run, with a ship running down, and Knights after me, and…alone. When this vanishes I’ll be alone.”

“I will make a point not to vanish,” said Tebbith. “This is real. You are here. Now the work begins.”

Koth nodded. Seconds later, he smiled. “I’m ready if you are.”

*

Tebbith wanted to escape early, but the thought of another gunman in the shadows kept him at Koth’s side. Koth wined and dined and gave a speech and rejoiced. Tebbith stayed at his side and strained for signs, any signs, of a threat. He was bleary, his eyelids starting to twitch from fatigue, by the time Koth took him back out into the windy night and into their accommodations.

Tebbith paced around the room, searching for something. Wynston would know how to do this. Theron would know how to do it. Tebbith had the Force, which had almost not been enough. He had to do better than almost.

“Everything’s still here,” said Koth. “Hey. You holding up okay?”

“It’s late,” said Tebbith.

“I know. Let’s turn in.”

Tebbith kissed Koth, and lay down, and drew him onto his chest to rest.

“Your heart’s going,” whispered Koth with a laugh.

“So is yours,” said Tebbith, and waited for him to sleep.

He thought about one dart getting through.

Maybe a blank. Maybe an annoyance. Maybe something with an antidote.

Then again, maybe fatal. Some idiot might have been shooting something quieter than a blaster, but as final.

Tebbith’s friends had enemies. They all had enemies. Tebbith had been in a shooting engagement before and would be again. So why this visceral reaction to one more instance?

No. One _new_ instance, against a new man, the man sparked from the Eternal’s need, the man who had given everything to be here helping these people. The man who had given up a quiet life in the Alliance, to be here helping these people.

The man who had given up a quiet life in the Alliance, with Tebbith, to be here helping these people.

What part of that visceral reaction was displeasure at ingratitude and what was jealousy…he was having trouble distinguishing.

He examined the anger in his heart, turned it side to side in what light his intellect could cast. He would have killed that stranger, given a hair more provocation. No alternate solutions. No second chances. It was wrong, it was deeply wrong. Yet it had nearly mastered him.

Attachment is dangerous, said his old lessons. When you tie yourself to a thing, a place, a person, you put your conscience hostage to things outside your control. Things you were not meant to control. To flow with the Force is to release these concerns…all of them. To flow with the Force is to honor life and accept death as two aspects of the same current. Water in his hands, not his to grasp.

A manageable discipline, practiced from birth. He hadn’t realized how far from it he had drifted.

He had to be the man Koth needed. In this new world, was that the one who had inconvenienced an assassin? Or was it the one who would have snapped his neck instead? Should he arrange time apart to re-center – the prospect stabbed – or was time at Koth’s side the only time worth clinging to? It had taken so much of his life to get here. Maybe some selfishness was an acceptable corruption if it meant keeping someone else safe. Maybe this was the right sacrifice.

So why did he feel so sick?

Above all, he must not let the others know his doubt. He was supposed to be the reliable one. They didn’t need to see a Jedi fal…ter. Ruth was kind, but she was Sith. And Larr Gith…she cared for him because he was big and harmless. Even she wouldn’t love him through some changes. And Koth, Koth must never know that anything having anything to do with him could possibly be wrong. Tebbith couldn’t shove his own guilt onto a person who would be pure-hearted enough to blame himself for it.

Tebbith had said with confidence that he could face the Jedi Council itself with this affair, and at the time, he’d believed it. The greater good was more than this knot of jealousy and indignation and anger and _hatred_ for someone he’d only met down the barrel of a gun.

He reached for the Force, tentatively, and then stopped. He didn’t want to know what he would find.


	38. In the Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indo Zal catches up to Larr Gith.

_Hours earlier…_

Of course there was a celebration party. It was right in place where they had awaited results.

There was a dais at either end of the hall. Teb was at one. Larr Gith was at the long table on the other, surrounded by major players and those who wanted to rub elbows with power. Indo Zal was a few spots down, where she could ignore him. Conversation turned at once to the future of Zakuul – a democratic future now assured. The question now was what to do with certain aspects, and Larr Gith was a certain aspect due to…well, being her.

“Look,” she said, “I’ve got some informed ideas about what the Jedi can do with some of their policies, but the fact is, the Galactic Republic has been stable for centuries with the arrangement they’ve got.”

“You would indoctrinate our children,” said a woman who was clearly shaping up to be the opposition leader. “Tear them from our homes!”

“What happens to them now? They’re all trained as Knights, right? Is there any choice there?”

“At least it’s Zakuulian,” muttered someone else.

“Vortena will stop it anyway,” said another. “We don’t have to give anyone up.”

“Establish a home organization,” said Larr Gith. “The Jedi will offer instructors. You’ll be able to teach your children to be heroes in their own way, not just uniformed cannon fodder.”

“Cannon fodder,” said one of the former resistance fighters. “You’re not wrong, Jedi. And how many of our Knights did you personally kill when the Alliance invaded?”

“But now they can train replacements for their next war,” the opposition leader said viciously. “Isn’t that right, Jedi? We’ve taken Vortena back. He’s ours, and you aren’t. We don’t need your programming for our families.”

“We’re not here to form an army for the Jedi,” said another. “Not our adults, and certainly not our children.”

“The Jedi don’t want an army!” said Larr Gith. “Our system allows for education for the safe and constructive use of Force powers. The Order has stayed stable for thousands of years – the system works. And we’re offering it to you.”

“How many of those get handed over to the Alliance?” said the resistance fighter. “Maybe Jedi don’t like war, but the Outlander does.”

“Not as much as you might think,” said Larr Gith. “The Alliance has its own training, which is also open to your people.”

Indo Zal cleared his throat. “We’ve seen their results here on Zakuul. Imagine a citizen’s corps that could do as much. Our own protection, under Consul Vortena’s aegis. Zakuul’s.”

The resistance fighter gestured curtly. “Tell the Alliance we can do without their ‘educational’ programs,” she said. “We have our own truth, and we won’t let you erase it.”

“I think,” said the opposition leader, “you're done here.”

Everyone looked at Larr Gith. The silence was appalling.

She held her head high. “You don’t. Have. To invent. A society. From scratch.”

 “Nor do we have to take the first solution who rushes our way.”

“I think–” Indo Zal said anxiously.

Larr Gith took a heaving breath. “Fine,” she said. “You will have this opportunity tomorrow. And the day after, and after, because the Outlander is surreally generous when she wants to be. Think real hard before you slap that away.” She stood, spun on her sapphire stiletto heel, and walked out.

Indo Zal didn’t even hear what people were saying. He rushed past the other Zakuulians and pushed through the gawking crowd to get to the door.

Outside it was raining, a fine stinging rain driven by a steady wind. Larr Gith was stalking, an utterly mesmerizing maneuver, while the translucent blue over-robe cinched to her narrow waist snapped and clung in the rain. She kept her head held high while the rain worked its messy fingers into her shining golden updo.

Indo Zal followed her, struggling to free his rain repulsor. She made good speed, but he managed to near her side. “Master Gith,” he panted. “My place is closer.”

She kept walking.

His repulsor brought up a holo image of an oversized aurodium crown over his head. Rain pattered and ran off of it on all sides. He held it over her and tried not to focus on the rain droplets already sliding down her pale face and her long neck and her pleasantly exposed upper bosom.

“My affiliation is already tainted in their view,” he said. The rain was already having its way with his hair. “If I'm suspect either way...I would rather – that is – I treated you poorly.”

Larr Gith gritted her teeth. “Yeah. You did.”

“I apologize. I wanted the fantasy a little too much. I'm only just coming to understand the reality. What you're doing for my people–”

She still wasn’t looking at him. “Is there a reason you're still talking to me?”

“Come with me. Dry off. Let me thank you properly.”

She cast her sparkling amber eyes skyward. “So who is whose puppet here?”

“Forget that! You’re fighting for a civilization, Larr, and I don’t care if everyone in that room is stupid enough to hate you, you’re helping us. Just by being you, where you are. Who you are. And I will not ask you to be alone while you do it.”

“Cute. Really.”

“I regret walking out. I was thinking about my career when you were thinking about my planet, and I’m sorry. Please, come with me.” She looked every inch as cold and beautiful as she’d been to start with. He sighed. “Or...just keep the repulsor.”

She kept walking. “Teb told me all the things you’ve been doing to back us.”

“I asked him not to tell you.”

“Well, he told someone who told me. He kept his word.” She finally looked at him. “What was I supposed to do with that?”

“I knew you wouldn’t like it if it came from me. But you deserve so much. You deserve the support of every ingrate in there, and I couldn’t let you keep fighting alone.”

“So you went behind my back.”

“I believe in what you’re doing! And I believe in you. And if the only price to pay is never getting your acknowledgment I’ll do it.”

“Well, I’m acknowledging.” She stopped dead. “If you want my forgiveness you’ll need…” She reached up with one gold-tipped hand. Her hand closed over his. “You’ll need to work it off,” she said softly.

“Larr?” he said, hoping.

“Indo,” she said, as if the name were new and strange. “Do you think I like thinking about you all the time? Do you think I enjoy wondering, every morning before the meetings start, how it might have gone? You walked out on me. That should have been the end of it.”

“That should have been the end of it,” said Indo Zal. “You don’t get second chances just by wanting them.”

 She didn’t disentangle their hands. “Ever think about a two-or-more-night stand, this time with afterglow cuddles?”

When he started to turn, she kept in step with him. “Nonstop.”


	39. Survey; Empress; End of Book 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We catch up with the major figures of the Alliance in a moment of relative peace.

They woke on the ship. Ruth restored some of the blanket to Theron, having taken most of it in her sleep. She sat up and stretched. They were on their way home.

Behind her Theron stirred. He crawled to sit behind her and pull her shoulders in. “Happy Independence Day,” he said.

It hadn’t been a year since the Eternal Empire’s fall. “What? Whose?”

“You know, some planet has an Independence Day for every single day of the Republic calendar.”

“No.”

“Some planets have four or five different ones. History is long. But yeah, there’s full coverage.” He kissed her neck and smoothed her hair back to brush her nape.

“I’m sure the Empire has a Day of Crushing for every day on the calendar,” said Ruth.

“Really? You’re new, relatively speaking.”

“Yes, but we’re enthusiastic.” She leaned into him. “So today’s a day to celebrate freedom from the likes of me.”

“I’m not there yet.”

“Not celebrating, or not free?”

“Oh, I’m celebrating.” He eased her loose collar over her shoulder and kissed the exposed area warm again.

Ruth held still, savoring each point of contact. “Hey, do you think I should get married in red? There’s precedent.”

He rested his chin on her shoulder. “You got engaged in red. That worked out okay.”

“All right. One little piece in place.” She turned her head and kissed him. “Why don’t we get home.”

*

“Vaylin.” Wynston’s visits always started with that insolence. The alien pulled up a chair outside Vaylin’s cell and pulled out a holoscreen. “Are you well?”

Vaylin slouched in her armchair and sneered. That was the script.

“It’s been a slow day for news.” He referred to his screen. “Balmorran Arms has released a new droid, just in time for it to not be necessary.”

Vaylin looked up. “They will always be necessary.”

Wynston met her eye just as if he’d been expecting this, her first response since he had started this reading update, weeks…no, months ago. “I don’t disagree,” he said. “But I do hope the next few wars are short. I think the Alliance has that kind of power.”

“Do you think your Alliance has learned peace?”

Wynston looked at her, probably. Those red eyes couldn’t faze her. “I don’t have experience in that department,” he said. “But I have confidence in my associates.”

She smiled. “Faith,” she said, “isn’t worth much.” She had a book of poetry to confirm that good intentions were as powerful as they were tangible – that is, not at all. “What happened to Rodia?”

Wynston looked more startled by that than anything so far. She had never asked a followup before. In fact, she thought, this might be her first acknowledgement she had ever been listening. “Since the earthquake,” he said in that accent she had hated at first, “several planets have sent aid. Reconstruction is coming along very well. You’ll probably see another article on it once their main city is healed.”

“Oh.”

“I can bring up an image of that droid, if you’re interested.”

No, too much. She summoned her most regal tone and least inviting slouch. “No,” she said. “You should go.”

Wynston stood and pocketed the screen. “Until next time.” He look the chair as he turned away

“You know I…” He stopped at her impulsive cry. He looked at her. “You know I would kill you,” she reminded herself.

“I know,” he said. “And I very much know you could were it not for that Force binding. No one’s forgotten that, Vaylin. Me least of all.”

She leaned back. “Good,” she said unhappily. “You may go.”

He went, damn him.

*

The destination was a cave on Hoth. Big game was once again the goal.

But Calline rode past the icetrompers and big cats. She didn’t push for speed; killing winds were sweeping the snowscapes, and the need to prevent exhaustion in the long ride was greater than the hope of getting indoors at a full gallop.

Calline rode alone. She needed this conversation to be small. Besides, Blizz had concocted an upgrade for T5-M7 that T5 had consented to, and Blizz had informed her the surprise would be ruined if she was there during installation. After years, the Jawa still had it.

She smiled behind her mask. And she kept going.

The cave looked pristine from outside. The winds had destroyed any sign of tracks. Calline scanned the entrance. Marks just inside along one side. Someone had been here.

She rode in and dismounted. Her tauntaun huffed and shuddered. “ _K’iset_ ,” she whispered. In an Alliance where the only other Cheunh speaker refused the language, she liked to speak it sometimes. Even if it was just to animals. “ _K’iset. Let’n ch’pae en’casn’ah_.”

She led it slowly in. The air was still here, which made it feel warmer, but Calline had learned on other hunts that the quiet cold was the kind that would kill you before you realized it had reached you.

It got dark, fast, but the twisting downward passage had stable rough ice to walk on without fear of tripping. Calline kept her ears pricked. If she were in a hidden camp for Mandalorians, she would almost certainly…

…dodge that red light. Calline drew and fired into the darkness. “Halt!” she shouted in Mando’a. “It’s the Grand Champion.”

“Champion?” It was a male voice, followed by a booming male laugh. “Welcome! Bring your animal.”

Floodlights came up. The armored man who had shot at her now opened his arms and conducted her around the corner to a wide, low stable of sorts, where other tauntauns stirred and chuffed. Calline took off her animal’s tack and hung it. She patted its flank on her way back: “ _Nah csarcican’t vah ch’at visco_.”

“Not Huttese,” said the man.

Calline grinned. “Cheunh.” The term was the same in Basic and Mando’a. “Been to a lot of places.”

She left the stables to discover a much higher cavern. Its lowermost two meters were lit in glaring white from temporary lamps. Two dozen people in various attitudes around heat lamps and supply stacks looked over.

And one, in very distinctive armor, walked up.

“Are you the one shooting up my camp?” said Shae Vizla.

Mando’a coming and going. “Once. I shot once.” Calline grinned. “Mandalore the Avenger.”

“Grand Champion of the Great Hunt. We missed you after you left Yavin, you know. I know you’re constitutionally opposed to gathering moss, but would a victory feast have killed you?” Mandalore grinned. “Kidding. Come on, what brings you here now?”

Calline tilted her head toward the biggest tent. Mandalore walked with her. The camp respectfully returned to a normal level of chatter.

The inside of the tent was full of cushions and weapons racks. Fitting. “Tihaar?” said Mandalore.

“Yeah.”

Mandalore poured. “So what is so bad you had to find me on Hoth to talk about it one on one?”

Calline sipped. She considered her words. She lowered the drink. “Does Clan Hannac sound stupid?”

Mandalore’s eyes widened. “Calline.  You’re finally doing it? I assume that is your name.”

“Yeah. Chiss. That bad?”

“All our names come from somewhere. Lady, you will have warriors fighting for the honor of joining your clan.”

“What if I can’t find them enough battles?”

“Let’s be honest. Since you picked up a blaster, how many times have you not seen at least one worthwhile fight in view?”

Calline shrugged. “Zero.”

“You talked to Torian? That man will follow you through a lot of stupid things and probably most of the smart ones. You’re lucky to have him.”

“This was his idea. Him and Akaavi.”

“Akaavi Spar? I heard about her clan. There’s some worthwhile revenge if her Imp is still alive.”

Calline nodded, and tossed back half her drink. “Feels like yesterday Mandalore the Vindicated was offering to let me be this. Mandalorian. Now…my own clan? Just wanted to hear it from someone higher up.”

“Well, speaking as the Mandalore, I officially allow and encourage you to establish Clan Hannac. Drink to that, and if you want I’ll keep quiet until you’ve told your people.”

“Yeah.” Calline finished her glass, and grinned. “They should hear it from me.”

Mandalore toasted and drank. “Tell your Alliance to free up its biggest gathering hall. We’re going to need it.”

 

* Cheunh: “Easy.” “Easy, let’s get inside. We’ll let you warm up.” <https://funtranslations.com/cheunh>

* Mando’a: <http://mandoa.org/>

 

*

“Vette. Welcome back.” Theron detached himself from the hangar’s arch and walked up to the disembarking Twi’lek. “Can I take your bag?”

“Never ask a smuggler that,” said Vette, “but yes, you absolutely can.” She gestured behind her. “Bowdaar, please watch Guss as we go. I’m giving him the tour against my better judgment.”

Theron shouldered Vette’s hefty backpack. “Friend of yours?” he said.

“One of the best. He just needs adult supervision.”

“So you brought…you?”

“Oh, don’t sound so surprised. Anyway, ever since Calline stole Akaavi I’ve been short handed. I could bring Risha, but she would require a full state visit.”

“Underworld kingpin?”

“Legitimate queen.” Vette cocked her head. “I should set that up. We’ll find out if your thing for powerful and deadly brunettes transfers.”

“What–I–I don’t transfer!”

“I can start talking you up. What should I tell her the implants do?”

“Don’t you have a–thank the stars.” The Wookiee was emerging from the _Ebon Crock_ behind a cringing Mon Calamari of uncommonly large eyes. “Bowdaar, how would you like to start that tour? Nice to meet you, by the way, uh…”

The Mon Calamari opened his mouth.

“Real name,” coughed Vette.

“Oh – er – Guss Tuno. Pleased to meet you.”

“Theron. Welcome to Ephel.”

*

Ruth heard the newcomers before she could identify voices. She snapped the fraught conversation short. The door to the conference room opened and Theron stood there. Vette, Bowdaar, and a squirrely-looking Mon Calamari crowded behind.

“Come on through,” said Theron, shepherding them in.

Vette spoke up. “Ruth, guys, this is Guss Tuno. Guss, Ruth, Lana, Wynston.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Ruth said crisply. “What do you need?”

“Oh – well – I was in some slight financial trouble which I would be very gratef–ow!”

“We were just saying hi,” said Vette. “Guss is going to be helping me with the tricky jobs. He’s very good at what he does.”

Bowdaar snorted.

Guss, limping slightly, walked up to the table and looked at the map projection. “Wow! This reminds me of the time I advised an Imperial Moff on strategy against the population of…mummumblDron.”

“And how did that work out?” said Vette, clearly accustomed to being the straight man.

“I convinced him that the entire populace likes to hide in plain sight. Like on open meadows and really high mountains. I said the cities were just clever decoys.”

“And did he believe you?” Lana said dryly.

“How should I know? I got off the bridge the second he turned to check the strategic map.” Guss blinked wetly. “But I bet I saved a lot of lives.”

“He’s worth it,” said Vette, with poorly stifled glee. “I’d better show him the cafeteria. He only works when fed.”

“So do you,” said Bowdaar. “And me.”

“Two more reasons to get going. Thanks, Ruth!”

Ruth, somewhat baffled, waved a goodbye.

“I think we established what we needed to establish,” said Wynston. “I’ll be going with her.”

“Don’t go angry,” said Ruth.

“With you? Never. But I am going.”

Ruth shut her eyes. The others, all but Lana, left.

“Well,” said Ruth, “it cleared the air.”

“He’ll come around,” said Lana. “It’s just that he has always known you as the Sith in charge. He’ll understand, in time.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruth said quietly.

“Why?”

“Because I did go. I did lecture. And I really liked it.”

“Nothing wrong so far.”

“Wynston doesn’t understand it.”

“But I do. Look at me, Ruth. I was the attaché to a Dark Council member. I served as bodyguard and paperwork slinger. I never thought my life could be different until Theron tripped me into the spy game, and suddenly there was a world available that I could develop skills to meet.”

“Like that,” said Ruth.

“Like that,” said Lana. “Believe me, I understand.” Pause. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to keep being the Outlander. My responsibilities here come first, unless a really good reason comes up.”

“Like finding out what you always wanted to do? You don’t have to answer that right now.”

“You would take my place here.”

She half smiled. “That hadn’t escaped my notice. Do what your heart demands, Ruth. And let me clean up the rest.”

*

Larr Gith had recovered the _Prodigy Burst_ from the Jedi Council during her surge of popularity after the Revan thing. It belonged to her. Anyone could see that.

She landed, touched up her makeup, hefted her suitcase, and started out.

Wynston stood at the edge of the landing pad. He greeted her with his crooked smile, the one she suspected was sometimes sincere.

“I get a welcoming party now?” she said.

“You look amazing,” said Wynston. “Zakuul agrees with you.”

“Less than you might think. Still, you’re sweet. What’s the bad news? What are you getting out ahead of?”

“I wanted to see you. Can I help you with your bag?”

Larr Gith glared at him. Her suitcase wiggled and started levitating until it took up station next to her elbow.

“I thought I would ask.”

Indo Zal finally banged through the door. “So there are two staircases down, and one of them leads to this creepy engine compartment. Who puts a staircase _there_?” he said.

“Wynston, Indo Zal, future government minister once Koth gets two seconds to confirm. Indo, Wynston. He doesn’t have a title, he’s creepy like that.”

“On behalf of the Alliance, welcome to Ephel. Do you…want a hand with those?”

Indo Zal dropped his third suitcase hard. “Please,” he said.

Larr Gith laughed. She had it on good authority that this was a beautiful sound, and it got that smile from Wynston again.

“So given that you’re here instead of ops,” she said, “how badly are you fighting with Ruth and Lana right now?”

“If I picked fights with the likes of them,” he said, “I wouldn’t have lived this long. Still…I’ve missed your contribution to the chemistry.”

Larr Gith smiled. “I just bet you have.”

“So, tell me about how you’ve wowed Zakuul, because I know you have.”

“You are a fantastic conversationalist, you know that?” Larr Gith caught Indo’s eye and jerked her head out toward the temple proper. “Let’s walk and talk.”

*

It was after eleven Ephel time when Tebbith and Koth appeared on the conference room holo. The congratulations were friendly and verbose, and nobody hung up when they started to slow.

“Indo’s conked out,” reported Larr Gith. “Poor guy wears out fast.”

“And thank you for giving everyone that image,” said Koth, laughing.

“We’ve added to the library,” Ruth said in her best crowd-control tone. “I think you’d like to see it, Tebbith.”

“Once Koth is invested,” said Tebbith. “I look forward to it.”

“Speaking of which,” said Lana. “Koth, really? I let you out of my sight once and you take over a Republic.”

“Someone was going to,” said Koth. “Better someone we like, right? Right?”

“Right,” Theron said firmly.

“People keep telling me Republics work,” drawled Wynston. “You have our support.”

And for a few minutes there was no blame, nor fear for the future, nor annoyance in the present; at least, for all except Larr Gith, who did manage to list her major grievances. Nobody held it against her.

 

\--End of Book 7--

 


	40. The Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron knows what he has to do, but not when or why.

Theron was on Nathema again. The world was grey and empty as he remembered, but for a cylinder of white fluorescent light containing Ruth, locked in battle with hooded, masked strangers, nearly a dozen of them. She deflected, swung, stabbed, dodged…she was always and only herself.

But he knew something she didn’t know.

He opened his mouth and tried to shout a warning. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He gagged and tried again. She was doing well, so well, but there were so many of them. He knew what she needed to stop them, he knew exactly what to say, but his throat locked every time he tried to say it. He struggled to move but something was holding him in place. Something, something, and he saw the first time a blaster bolt made it through her guard.

He couldn’t even scream.

He lined up the words in his head, desperately pushing for the moment when his voice worked again and he could bark out the answer. A combatant with a vibrosword flanked her and thrust his weapon, deep into her side–

He fell into sitting up in bed. He was in a strange room, some new planet for some new mission. Ruth lay beside him, for once not taking all the blankets…or any. He slid one free of himself and tucked it over her. She made a throaty little sound and curled up tighter.

He lay down again, on his side facing her. He looked at her stillness in the darkness until sleep crept back. She wasn’t fighting.


	41. A Visit to Coruscant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Alliance pays its regards to the Galactic Republic.

When Ruth and her retinue arrived at the Senate Plaza on Coruscant, they found a double line of Senators nodding and bowing respectfully on her way in. Behind them stood a second double line of soldiers, standing to attention. She knew what to do, as much as if she were the Wrath and it was eight years ago: she accepted their homage without acknowledgment, and made for the people at the end.

“Let’s hope this goes better than our last capital planet visit,” she murmured to Theron.

“Hm,” he said, and cast a look backwards at the honor guard of Jorgan and Calline, and then they were facing the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor Galena Rans.

The nods here were fractional. It was impossible to miss that Calline had retired one Republic Chancellor and Jorgan had arrested the one after that, and they were here working for Ruth.

“Outlander,” said Rans, too warmly. “On behalf of the Republic I welcome you to Coruscant.”

“Chancellor,” said Ruth. She was acutely aware of the floating HoloNet camera drones getting every angle of this state visit. “We are very pleased to be here.”

Rans signaled. Ruth turned to see the double row of soldiers raising their blasters to points in the sky. A second later they fired a double volley of orange blaster fire into the air with one resounding yelp. She nodded acknowledgment, then turned back for a round of introductions to the Republic cabinet and, in due time, Ruth’s hand-picked retinue.

“In token of our friendship,” said Rans, “please accept a small gift on behalf of the Republic.” Someone handed her a small velvet box. Theron lightly elbowed her arm. She turned the box over, slowly, until he nodded at the edge of her view: no threats visible to the naked eye. She opened to find an enameled clasp consisting of little gleaming domes, like bubbles on a flat surface, shading in varying sizes and colors from a true Republic blue to a pearlescent grey.

She checked the important part first. “Who does it represent?”

“We commissioned an artist to make something new. Like our new partnership.”

Interesting little overstep. “We thank you.” It was, in fact, very pretty. She plucked it out of its backing and smoothed it onto her leatheris armor at the shoulder. She would have to keep it for future visits.

Calline stepped up without prompting and produced the long tubular scroll case. She handled it lightly in her gloved hands. Ruth in turn offered it to Rans. “A small gift,” she said, “in token of our regard.”

Rans frowned but accepted it. She released a catch on one end and it unrolled in her hands, flattening to reveal a holoprojection of a majestic building that took its architectural cues from the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the one that had been destroyed over twenty years ago.

“I don’t know what the replacement is going to look like,” said Ruth. “But I do know you will rebuild.”

“Words well spoken,” said Rans.

The feast was set out in the front hall of the Senate building itself. Over dinner it became clear: the Republic really wanted her to think it was taking the Alliance seriously. The Alliance had a government. It had the galaxy’s most fearsome fleet. The Republic was legitimizing the entire thing with this state visit. If Ruth wasn’t assassinated before she left the planet, this really could be a profitable alliance.

Calline declined to sit, opting instead to stand by the door in full battle armor. Jorgan said little. Theron ate after other people ate, and laughed after other people laughed, and generally acted like he was trying not to act cagey. She couldn’t blame him. On a balcony not far from here he had proposed to her, a lifetime ago…but this, now, was a whole other vat of sharks.

She found herself curious as the meal wound down. Her next stop was an address to the Senate itself. This whole boundless building was centered on that vast chamber. She had seen holos. She had never expected to be there in peace. Her coming of age had been in a war with these people.

She bit her tongue when the Supreme Chancellor’s little stand separated itself from the grand interior curve and floated to a point of prominence. And these people accused the Dark Council of being drama queens.

One thing was obvious, velvety, palpable: the silence of hundreds of people waiting for an unknown quantity to make itself known.

She started blandly. Honor to be here, admiration for society and hospitality, banalities, until she got to a little she had written herself.

“Let’s not pretend that we didn’t come here through incredible pain.” Silence blanketed the room. “Friends, we have suffered much over the past eight years. We have faced overwhelming odds and made the best of defeats. But I can tell you one thing: You and I are still here. The Alliance was built out of this pain and chaos, and now here we are, two survivors, marked. But I stand before you today to tell you: we are not here for war. We are not here for competition. We are not here to carry grudges from the past. Our future must be more than the sum of past misalignments.

“To that end I come to you in friendship. Not as a Sith. Not as a handful of scattered planets. As one entity, and one that desires cooperation with the great powers of this galaxy.”

It all seemed to go over well, anyway. After the polite applause died Ruth left with Rans. Four armed guards came with them. Ruth didn’t worry too much. She had left her lightsaber on the ship as a gesture of goodwill, but her saber wasn’t her only defense.

“Next, to the Galaxies Opera House,” said Rans. “For your edification. Mr. Shan told me you have never seen Twi’lek opera.”

“That’s correct.” And was probably meant to poke at all the Twi’lek slaves Ruth had known in the past. Oh, this relationship was not all cuddles and hearts. “I look forward to it.”

They passed down a hallway. The four armed guards seemed to discourage casual traffic. Then from around a corner someone came running. Someone in a Republic uniform burst in carrying something in his arms.

In eerie unison Calline and Jorgan turned to the Republic guards nearest them, stomped their feet, wrested their blasters away, shoved them down, and pointed the blasters at the newcomer.

Calline kicked hers when he tried to get up.

Theron had reached into his jacket. The newcomer, however, set down his suitcase and held up his hands under the pressure of four blasters and a whatever the spy was about to do. “Chancellor – ma’am! I’m sorry! I was just delivering this to Senator Blidge. D-don’t hurt me.”

“Not important, right?” said Calline, and pointed her blaster at the suitcase.

The man yelped. “It’s just the Senator’s _yalta_ goo! Please don’t shoot!”

Jorgan and Calline looked at Ruth.

“Go on,” Chancellor Rans said coolly. “Try not to run indoors again.”

The guard under Calline’s foot squirmed. The one slipping a vibroknife from his jacket behind Jorgan stood up. Jorgan and Calline returned their weapons. “No hard feelings,” Jorgan said dryly.

“Thank you,” said Ruth, including everyone who hadn’t shot or stabbed anyone. “Let that be the last time weapons are necessary.”

And, nicely, it was.

*

An honor guard including Aygo rolled out to greet the group outside their large, sleek ship. Ruth led them all into a forward lounge.

Calline stopped in the middle of the room, popped off her helmet, and laughed.

It started as huffy shaking and escalated into a tumbling laugh, then another, each trailing into “ha ha ha” and leaping up to begin again. She leaned hard on the back of a chair and just let it go.

“Calline?” said Ruth.

“The look on their _faces_ ,” she gasped. “They thought I’d bag another Chancellor right there.”

Jorgan’s cheek twitched. “I won’t complain about worrying a Senator here and there.”

“I’m surrounded by anarchists,” said Theron.

“You should talk,” said Ruth.

“I’ve been on the straight and narrow since we handled Darok!”

“I’m afraid your listed affiliation is me.”

He smiled his heart-melting smile. “You know, we could probably edit that file.”

“Oh, if you _don’t_ want to be affiliated….”

“Ha. Forget it. Come on, let’s go home.”


End file.
